


Rise From the Ashes To Dive Into The Water

by StandinShadow



Series: Skating for The Gold [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Alternate Universe - Skating, Basically all of their canon stuff is still there, Coran is Team Dad, Established Relationship, Families of Choice, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Keith (Voltron), Insecure Lance (Voltron), Inspired by Yuri!!! on Ice, Keith (Voltron) Has Anxiety, Please Let Me Know if You Want Me to Add any Tags, Self-Esteem Issues, but very loosely
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-08 08:18:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13454190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StandinShadow/pseuds/StandinShadow
Summary: Lance and Keith have been dating for a few months, and they have one shared goal: to go to the Olympics and win medals there. But there are triumphs and failures on the path there, and when someone from Keith's past comes back and unintentionally brings out all his old fears, both start to have doubts if they'll be able to make it to the podium while still together. Will theA sequel to Of Fire and Ice and Dragons and Phoenixes covering the rest of the season.





	1. Short Program

Keith leans against Lance’s shoulder as he stares out the window, watching the clouds roll by over the patches of brown and green grass, the snow of their hometown long forgotten. They decided to take the train to their hotel for fun, flying into a different airport on their way down to San Jose for US Nationals. Keith wishes they’d thought through the anxiety this would cause, but planning has never been his strong suit. And Lance has no reason to be nervous. He won the Grand Prix. Keith only came got silver. It has been close, a hair of a difference. But it still means that Keith can’t help but be a little nervous going into Nationals.

  After all, he’ll be in his twenties by the next Olympics, and skating isn’t a sport that’s kind to the aging. Sure, there have been Plushenko’s, Fernandez’s, Patrick Chan’s, but there’s no reason to think Keith’s going to be like any of them. His speed and flexibility, supposedly his two best qualities, will only go down with time. And his former best quality, his jumps, will too and Keith needs to get them better fast. He only has three quads in his routine, whereas Regris has four and Lance has five. Keith needs to be on their level if he wants to medal.

  Keith feels a slight poke on the back of his neck and turns to find himself face to face with Lance’s warm smile and bright blue eyes, and some of his tension fades away. They’ll always be competitors (well, at least for the next few years), but Lance is also his boyfriend and Keith has to admit that seeing that gold medal be slipped across his neck was pretty awesome. No one deserves it more than Lance, Keith thinks, as he leans in and bumps his nose against the other boy for a moment.

  “I want to do four quads instead of three,” Keith tells Lance as turns his head away to face the front of his seat again, Keith’s hand pressing tightly against Lance’s own, fingers lacing together.

  “You want to add more quads? I don’t think Coran will like that,” Lance points out with a small frown, nudging Keith slightly with his shoulder. Keith wishes he wasn’t holding Lance’s hand so he could cross his arms, but he can’t so instead he bites his lip and gives Lance a pointed look. Lance lets out a small scoff, rolling his eyes a bit – and then smirks, slow and easy, gaze growing a hint flirtatious as he leans in. “Besides, then you’d have to take time away from your spins, and you know how much I like seeing your flexibility.”

  “Lance!” Keith snaps as his face flushes, glancing around the train car to see if there any kids around. He doesn’t want to flirt in front of them. Or anyone, to be honest. Luckily the car is pretty much empty. So, Keith turns back to Lance, gaze half-lidded as he cocks his head to the side. “You’d still see it do that plenty, besides you know, you got a connection that means you can see me do spins whenever you want, skates optional.”

  Lance grins and wriggles his eyebrows, though there’s a hint of amusement in his smirk, a gentle teasing Keith’s gotten to know well. Keith knows flirting via referencing his skills in ballet probably isn’t … great. “Oh, do I now?”

  “I’m just saying, no matter how many quads I do …” Keith trails off with a tight frown, his joke about flirting lost as he sees an older man board the train. He’s tall with a long white braid, expression stern and serious as he reaches a hand out to his student’s shoulder, leading him toward a seat a few aisles away from Keith. Keith tries to convince himself he’s wrong, but then those cool grey eyes meet his own. No, Keith’s not wrong. It is Kolivan. Keith sucks in a breath as the other man breaks eye contact without acknowledging him, like Keith’s nothing to him.

  Keith can’t believe this. He hasn’t seen Kolivan since he was 8. It’s been a decade. Why would he should up in his life now, when the personal part of it’s finally starting to go well? Except Kolivan clearly still wants nothing to do with him, just like when he was a kid. Otherwise he would’ve given him more than a quick glance. Then Lance squeezes his hand, touch soft, and Keith’s attention is pulled back to the man next to him. “Keith? We were flirting?”

  “It’s Kolivan,” Keith mutters in a low voice, gaze growing tighter as he lets it flick back to the man a few aisles away from him. Lance follows his gaze, eyes widening as he sees the other man, cocking his head to the side. He lets go of Keith’s hand, though they’re still touching on the hand rest. “He’s here.”

  “Yeah, he trains Regris, so that makes sense,” Lance reminds him with a quick shrug, turning back to Keith, eyebrows scrunched together as though he’s trying to figure something out. This time Keith does cross his arms, biting his lip as her glances out the window and tries to hide the anxiety in his gaze. He doesn’t want to make Lance worried this close to competition. “Oh, was he our favorite skater as a little kid? The guy who you copied in your living room with little cardboard skates?”

  “Something like that,” Keith agrees tonelessly as he keeps staring at the clouds, not ready to meet Lance’s gaze even though he can feel his eyes boring into the back of his head. “If he’s here, I definitely need to add the fourth quad.”

  “Even if Coran goes for it, buddy, he’s not gonna go for it within the next two days, gotta make that case for the Olympics,” Lance says as he wraps an arm around his shoulder, squeezing his own softly until Keith finally twists around to meet his gaze. Keith gives him a weak smile, though he knows his eyebrows are still pushed together. Lance raises an eyebrow, as though daring him to argue with him, mouth twisting into an almost smirk as he watches Keith.

  “I guess,” Keith sighs, running a hand through his hair as he slumps against Lance. He knows Coran isn’t going to approve turning his second triple axel into quad axel before the Olympics. Keith could try it without asking, but he knows they’re not supposed to and Coran and maybe even the judges would be pissed. Lance seems to catch his look od defeat, leaning over to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. “You nail all five of your quads for me then.”

  Keith and Lance spend the half an hour after their talk in happy silence, Keith reading Ready Player One while Lance plays a game on his Switch, the two of them squeezing each other’s free hand every so often. It’s peaceful and Keith is able to forget about Kolivan and quads. He doesn’t even think about it while they check into the hotel, Shiro meeting him there with a quick hug and checking them into their room. Lance follows Coran to theirs, telling Keith he’ll see him at the rink in an hour. That’s when Keith’s anxiety comes back in full force.

  Keith still arrives at the rink on time, lacing up his skates as he watches Coran and Lance talking from afar. Lance is grinning, warm and bright, a few curls falling across his forehead. Lance keeps threatening to cut them off, and Keith has to admit that he’ll be a little sad if they’re gone by the Olympics. His own hair is long enough he has to keep it in a bun, now.

  Coran smiles over at Lance, gaze warm and wise and the two laugh, even though as far as Keith can tell no one’s said anything. Keith can’t help but be intrigued by the natural connection and ease between them, the shorthand Keith has never managed to have with anyone, not even Shiro. Then Lance glances at him quickly, eyes bright as he holds up his phone from across the rink. Keith takes a deep breath, trying to focus on staying patient or at least not freaking out. Now is not the time for him to panic.

  “Keith, say hi to all of your adoring fans,” Lance calls as he holds up his iPhone, red light blinking in a way that haunts Keith. The last time he saw that was his spot for Nationals promos, at which he’d barely answered any question, gotten frustrated when he didn’t understand a meme and _teared_ up, and done three jumps. Only his name and the jumps made the segment, and Keith thinks they dubbed his name over from a different interview. “Well, mostly mine, but I’m sure yours are watching too since it’s not like you update your social media more than once a year.”

  “Whatever,” Keith mumbles as he closes his eyes, trying to bite back the annoyance in his voice. He knows Lance is just trying to help him out here. Keith looks back at the camera, taking a deep breath before he gives the screen a small, crooked smile, though the way Lance scrunches his eyebrows together makes Keith think it might look pained. “Hi. We’re in San Jose for Nationals. I’m focusing on my jumps, I think the quad toe flip is strong, but I’d like to figure out the quad lutz before the Olympics. Umm. Stay in school?”

  “Keith,” Lance says blankly, eyebrows pressing down as he stares over at Keith. Keith stares back, smile fading a bit as he waves at the camera again. Lance frowns, pressing one hand against his nose as he suddenly clicks his phone shut. Then he glances over at Keith, expression at once annoyed and strangely sympathetic. “Well, it was better than your Olympic spot at least, but probably still not gonna upload it.”

  “I don’t even know why we have to do spots in the first place, it’s supposed to be about the skating, not how much shit we can sell. Look, can we just focus on warming up and not on what all your fangirls think about me?” Keith rants before he can stop himself, throwing his arms out and shaking one hand in the air, glaring hotly past Lance and at the rink he’s actually mad at right now. It doesn’t change the fact the glare he’s aimed in Lance’s direction, or that Keith can hear his voice rising on each word, feel the way he’s starting to shake as he redoes his right lace.

  “Yeah, okay, calm down,” Lance calls as he puts his hands up, palms facing forward as he glances at Keith. He’s frowning tightly, eyebrows sloped down and toward each other, and yeah, Keith knows that look. It means he’s being irrational. Keith crosses his arms and pushes toward the ice, shaking his arms out again as his blades hit the path. “It sounds like you need to burn off some of that jerky energy anyway.”

  “I got the pun,” Keith snaps as he twists around at the edge of the ice, hand wrapped tightly around the edge of the rink. Keith’s not sure why he’s so mad right now, except that every part of him feels like it’s burning up. Still, it was a good pun, his movements and his actions lining up more than he’d like, and Keith can’t help smiling a little through the frantic energy still pulsing under his veins.

  “Yeah, didn’t make it subtle, now go skate, but don’t try any quads until you’re feeling less impulsive,” Lance tells him with a bright grin, clearly proud of himself. Keith can’t blame him, he’s hard person to cheer up when he gets too much into his own head. Lance and Shiro are pretty much the only people who can. Otherwise Keith just has to go run or skate it off, which he guesses he’s still doing now. But it’s better with Lance somehow, Keith’s tension fading just a little quicker.

  “Whatever, coach,” Keith tells him with a small smile of his own, cocking his head to the side as he glides back onto the ice. He’s still angry, but a part of him feels better knowing that Lance is willing to help through these moods Keith doesn’t always understand, other than he thinks they go back to his parents leaving him as a kid. His parents and everyone else, for that matter. Keith does his first triple axel, landing wobbly as he tries to push the past out of his mind.

  It doesn’t matter now. He has Shiro and Hinata and Lance, and he doesn’t need anyone else. Especially someone who left Keith out to dry fort not being good enough.

* * *

  Lance watch as Keith goes into another Bielmann spin, body twisting as his face relaxes with each movement. Keith is beautiful when he’s like this, free and fluid, passion still there, but the fear and hurt that drives him no longer haunting them. Keith slides into a quad flip toe, landing it perfectly as he swivels on the ice. Lance smiles softly as Keith meets his gaze from across the rink. Keith’s getting better at his jumps, even if he doesn’t seem to think so. Maybe that’s what’s upsetting Keith, training. Lance can relate.

  He hasn’t voiced it to anyone yet, he likes to give off an air of confidence, Lance has been dealing with some insecurities of his own since the Grand Prix. Sure, he won, but his PCS score was way lower than it was before he started doing all these quads. While his jumping is getting better, he feels like the rest of his skills, his performance, is starting to go downhill as a result. And while Lance loves jumping, loves the competition, he loves the performance aspect of a skating the most. He loves connecting with the music and the story in his own head, the way the audience responds and connects with him when he does it well. There’s no better feeling, no stronger sense of belonging than that.

  And lately it’s been gone. Not completely, but it’s not there the way it was last year or even a few months ago at Cup of China. Their feelings had been strong, between his relationship with Keith being new and the ups and downs of his wins and losses that season, and just well – there was more. But with those feelings fading and the commentators obsessed with his jumps and not his story, Lance is feeling out of place.

  Lance needs to make himself feel more connected, more alive, which is why his social media presence has been on overdrive lately. Speaking of which, now that Keith isn’t acting like a tiger cub, maybe they can do that interview after all.

  “Okay, now that you look less like you wanna switch hockey, so you can fight people, let’s make that video,” Lance calls as Keith comes off of the ice, waving at his boyfriend with a bright grin. Keith bites his lip as he slides down onto the bench, one hand squeezing the hard metal and meeting Lance’s bright gaze with an unsure one of his own. Okay, this is going to take a little more wining and dining, but Lance can pull that off too. He’s an expert in this, a charmer.

  “Do we have to?” Keith asks with a slight frown as he starts unlacing his boots, the right one first like always does. Lance watches his hands slowly undo the laces, the right boot first like he always does. Keith’s ambidextrous, but he always laces his boots with his left hand in control and unlaces them with his right hand. Lance wonders if it’s a superstition, using the creative side of his brain to lace up and the logical side to lace down. Maybe that could be a cute thing to include in the video.

  “Yeah, I think it will be good for both of us,” Lance tells him with a bright smile as he pats Keith on the shoulder, letting it rest there as he leans forward to meet Keith’s eyes. Lance gets that Keith is nervous, but he knows Keith can make a good video. They’ve done it plenty of times before.

  Keith starts to nod, but then he bites his lip as he cocks his head to the side, eyebrows scrunching together. “Wait how is it good for you?”

  “I – well – because I’m your beloved boyfriend and it’s important to me that everyone knows how adorable and charming you can be," Lance explains, hoping it’s not clear that he’s lying through his teeth. That is part of it – Lance hates the idea that Keith is just a hothead or a coldhearted skater – but a bigger part of it is that Lance needs to feel like a performer right now, needs to feel a connection to something and someone. “Well, adorable and very likable in your own way. Plus, as much as you might not like it, your publicity does matter almost as much as your scores.”

  “Yeah, okay, let’s do it,” Keith agrees with a slight nod, eyebrows sloping down as he rubs his fingers over his thumbs for a moment. Then he bends over, pulling on his favorite pair of worn tennis shoes instead. He doesn’t lace them in any particular order, Lance notices with a small smile, catching Keith’s gaze as he looks up at him through his bangs. Keith’s hair is getting kind of long, though Lance thinks he should just grow it more. It suits him like this. Keith smiles at him then, gaze open and trusting in a way that makes Lance’s heart skip a beat.

  “There’s my guy,” Lance says with a grin, giving Keith a thumbs up before he pulls out his camera, turning the switch on and holding it up in his face. Keith gives the camera a crooked grin, waving his hand back and forth awkwardly before dropping it to the side again, eyebrows sloping down a little. “Okay Keith, tell the fans a little about how you’re feeling and how you’ve been keeping your cool leading up to Nationals.”

  “I – okay, Hi, I’m Keith Kim. I’m feeling a bit nervous, I guess, but not terrible,” Keith answers him, glancing up at the ceiling for a second. Not great, but not terrible. Lance slides the hand not holding the camera to Keith’s knee, resting it there until Keith’s gaze meets his own again. There. Then Keith’s grin deepens and he raises one eyebrow, something sheepish coming into his gaze. “Keeping cool isn’t really a thing for me.”

  Lance lets out a small giggle, shaking his head a little, because okay, that was good. Lance loves when his influence actually shows. “Oh, trust me, I know, babe. Let me rephrase that, how are you keeping from completely freaking out?”

  “I’ve been playing a lot of Pokémon and working on my ballet. Practicing my jumps. A lot. I know they … could have been better this season and last season. I know that’s why a lot you liked me. Though that’s also why a lot of you didn’t like me so,” Keith rambles, rubbing his hands over his thumb as he speaks, and then stops, as though he just remembered he was on camera. He meets the screen again, biting his lip as he cocks his head to the side as his gaze grows softer, more intimate. “I’m sorry, I’m fine. All of your support means a lot to me. I’m not used to having people stick around even when I’m not at my best.”

  “Well you should get used to, Keith, The Keithans are fanbase to be reckoned with,” Lance says with a soft smile, squeezing Keith’s knee a bit, his own gaze growing warmer as he tries to telegraph that he knows the second half of that message is about them and that he’ll stick around rather Keith gets Gold or 25th tomorrow, because he’s here for Keith, not anything else. That only matters to Lance because it matters to Keith. “Now, of course we don’t wanna jinx each other, but what are your hopes going into tonight?”

   “I want to skate both my programs clean, and of course I wanna end up on the podium,” Keith explains, looking a little more confident now, gaze taking on that determined edge it always has right before he gets on the ice. Keith smiles again, optimistic and bright. “And I want you to end up there as well, and then at the Olympics. Both of us, I mean.”

  “Yeah, I figured, it was great talking to you, Keith,” Lance murmurs, not quite able to keep the affection out of his voice. Keith rolls his eyes playfully, shaking his head as Lance clicks the camera shut. He’s definitely leaving that moment in there too, that was adorable. They’re adorable. He glances over at Keith who’s grabbing his coat from the bench, messy black hair half out of its ponytail. “Do you want to grab dinner?”

  “Yeah, I have some frozen stuff from Shiro we could heat up,” Keith throws out as he stands up, sliding his bright red jacket over his shoulders. Lance grimaces, eyebrows sloping down at his words. “Yeah, it doesn’t taste good, but it’s Coran approved.”

  “I know, you celery loving weirdos,” Lance teases him, bumping his shoulder, and Keith lets out a small scoff as he runs a hand over his hair. Lance wants to go out, to get out of his head more but – maybe it’s time to do that by talking to Keith instead. Lance gives Keith a small, nervous smile, gaze growing more vulnerable as he slides a hand to his shoulder. “Hey Keith, earlier, when I said it was for me too – it was because I’ve been … the performance part of my skate this year isn’t what it was last year and I kind of miss the drama, you … wouldn’t understand, but doing stuff like that helps a little.”

  “We could ask Coran to make some changes, if you want,” Keith throws out as he starts walking toward the locker room, Lance following him. Keith glances back at him as he speaks, gaze determined and thoughtful, belying how casual his words are. Keith’s the type to look for practical solutions, but it’s clear that he cares from the way he’s looking at Lance. Lance nods but can’t help frowning, because he doesn’t want to go in there asking for help when everyone else’s programs were great, when he should be able to make his great. Then Keith grabs his hand and squeezes it gently, giving Lance a crooked smile. “Together I mean, since I need to add the quad.”

  “Need? Something you’re not telling me there, buddy?” Lance asks as he raises an eyebrow at Keith, free hand pressed to his hip. Still, he’s relieved that he isn’t the only one who needs help here, isn’t the only one feeling like he might not be good enough. It’s … not nice exactly, because he doesn’t want Keith to feel bad about himself or his skating and Lance would prefer to have more confidence himself, but it’s still good to know he’s not alone, that he has someone in his corner who gets how he feels and isn’t going to judge him for it.

  “I’m fine,” Keith answers in a clipped voice, squeezing Lance’s hand as he gives a quick smile, turning his gaze back toward the door. They walk the rest of the hallway in comfortable silence, but Lance can tell Keith’s mind is still on that fourth quad, and not in the excited way it was this morning. He raises an eyebrow, squeezing Keith’s hand again. Keith glances at him, shaking his head quickly. “I just don’t want to be technically behind.”

  “You’re not, look, we’re both gonna make these programs work,” Lance promises as he leans over, nose to nose with Keith. Keith gives him another crooked smile before filling the gap between them, giving Lance a quick kiss, and then another, and another, until Lance doesn’t know where his lips start and Keith’s end, which is just the way he likes it.

  “I know you will, Lance,” Keith tells him, gaze growing determined and affectionate all at the same time as he finally pulls back from their kiss. He squeezes Lance’s hand, lacing their fingers together even more tightly before as they push their way through the double doors. “You’re the best performer I know.”

  “Thanks Keith,” Lance murmurs softly, gaze tender as he leans over to plant a quick kiss on Keith’s forehead. He wishes he could have the kind of confidence in himself that Keith has, could look at himself with that same trust and determination, the simple knowledge that Lance is good enough and important enough and strong enough. Keith believes in him, believes in his skating, and that makes Lance want to get to a place where he can feel the same way. Maybe that’s something like what love is.

  It doesn’t occur to Lance for another day and half that Keith doesn’t include himself in that statement.   

* * *

  Keith slides into his room with Shiro when he and Lance are done shooting, shooting Shiro a quick smile as Shiro waves at him. He’s relieved Pidge isn’t there even though he likes her, Juniors having finished earlier today. Pidge got silver, and there’s been some talk about sending her to 4 Continents, but Shiro’s also mentioned her and Matt wanting to try out Pairs. Matt’s tall enough they might be able to make it work out, and they’re both technically brilliant, so it might not be a bad move. Keith tries to keep his mind focused on that as he congratulates Shiro, smile genuine, but not enough for Shiro to catch the anxiousness in his gaze.

  Keith sighs as Shiro raises an eyebrow, because he wanted to be the one to introduce this idea, wanted to do it casually, but he knows that isn’t going to happen. Casual has never been Keith’s or Shiro’s expertise. Shiro glances at Keith and Keith frowns tightly, taking off his jacket to try and buy him time as he tries to figure out what to say, what he’s even feeling right now. Is he mad? Confused? Worried? Keith can’t tell and no one’s here to help him figure it out. Keith leans over and unlaces his shoes, setting them side by side before he finally glances up at Shiro, who’s still watching him with a worried gaze.

   Okay, he can do this, he can get through this conversation without things getting heavy.

  “I saw Kolivan,” Keith tells Shiro without preamble, slumping onto his bed as he looks over at Shiro. Shiro takes a deep breath, eyebrows sloping down a bit as he walks over to stand next to Keith, looking ready to pull him into a hug. This is already not going the way Keith wants. Keith gives him a tight look, expression as neutral and focused on the facts. Facts never betray him like feelings do. “He was on the same train as Lance and me. He’s here. His skater is going to Nationals. He’s good.”

  “That’s not what you’re upset about,” Shiro points out with a small frown as he slides down onto the bed next to him, turning so he and Keith are eye to eye. There’s a knowing quality to Shiro’s concern, the kind that makes him push when they’re on the ice. Keith doesn’t want the push here. Not yet.

  “I’m a little upset about it,” Keith points out with a small smirk, earning a quick laugh from Shiro, who shakes his head for a second. They both do this, make little jokes and self-deprecating quips when the other gets too sentimental or serious. It’s easy, safe, though Keith knows they’re relationship has started to move past that now. Then his gaze grows serious again, laughter fading into a tight smile. No sell. Keith gives Lance a weak grin for a second, gaze growing tighter as he glances up at Shiro. “I’m fine. It was just kind of weird to see him after all this time.”

  “I’d imagine,” Shiro says softly as he gazes at him, eyes still heavy with concern and worry. Keith bites his lips, crossing his arms as he tries to look away from Shiro. Keith wishes he would just let this go. It’s no one’s fault Keith didn’t have enough potential, enough personality as the commentators call it, for Kolivan to want to bother with him. Besides, he has Shiro and Lance and Hinata now, and he likes Hunk when he sees him. That’s enough. Shiro doesn’t seem to think so, eyebrows sloping down as he presses a hand against Keith’s shoulder. “We can talk about, if you want to, Keith – “

  “I don’t, let’s talk about the short program tonight,” Keith mutters, clenching his hands into the comforter of the bed as he glances over at Shiro, eyebrows scrunched together. he’s just as anxious, no, more anxious about than Kolivan. A quick flash of worry flashes across Shiro’s face, the hand on his shoulder pulling back and mouth twisting apologetically. Keith shakes his head, gaze growing tighter. “Don’t say you’re not my coach anymore, I know. I just – I’m not where I need to be technically. Hell, I’m not sure I’m technically where I was two years ago.”

  “Okay, you’re definitely better technically than you were two years ago, everything is better,” Shiro reminds him in a warm voice, gaze softening a bit as his hand comes back to rest on Keith’s shoulder. Keith might not be his student anymore, but this is still where their relationship started and still where things are most comfortable. Maybe even more comfortable, now that Shiro’s job isn’t to push him anymore. And Keith knows he’s right, his scores on his spins and transitions have been higher this season than last or even the one before when he was actually doing well. But … not all of his scores.

  “Except my jumps,” Keith mumbles and then turns away, gaze growing heavy as he shakes his head in the mirror. His bangs fall across his eyes, masking some of the disappointment running hot through his veins from Shiro’s curious gaze. Keith knows this feeling and he knows he needs to handle it. it’s not as bad as it was before the Juniors Worlds where he crashed his way into seventh, but it’s not as far away as he’d like it to be the night before Nationals either. Keith needs to do well here if he wants to go to the Olympics.

  “Jumps aren’t the only part of skating, Keith,” Shiro reminds him in tone that’s firmer than it was a few seconds ago, the hand on his shoulder growing softer. Keith glances at Shiro, biting his lip as Shiro gives him a firm look. “We both know that and know that Coran has helped you improve your PCS scores in ways I never could.”

  “I wasn’t known for being an artist, I was known for being a jumper,” Keith snaps as he twists around to shoot Shiro a dark look before he can stop himself, some of the anger and fear – because fear’s there too, he realizes – bubbling to the surface. Keith isn’t surprised when Shiro pulls his hand away, people always – no. No, people don’t always leave. Shiro didn’t after Junior Worlds, not entirely anyway. Keith closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths, trying to steady himself, center himself in reality and not the feelings he can’t quite push away.

  “The ideal is to be both, Keith, that is where I and now Coran is trying to get you,” Shiro argues, voice sounding genuinely annoyed now as he presses his hand against the sheets, a bit like Keith did a few seconds ago. Keith bites his lip, guilt adding into the cocktail of emotions in the pit of his stomach, because he doesn’t want Shiro to be annoyed with him or feel bad or – he doesn’t want anything to be bad. Keith never does, but somehow he ends up making everyone feel bad anyway.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” Keith cries finally, running his hands over both his thumbs now, gesture soothing against the slow push of his emotions. His voice sounds weak and raspy even to his own ears, and the short program tomorrow looks worse and worse to him. Shiro’s expression softens a bit, though his gaze still holds judgment, questions, Keith isn’t ready to face. “I just – I need to go, Shiro.”

  “And I think you will, but us talking about this probably isn’t helping your nerves,” Shiro answers him, voice gentler now as he reaches a hand out again, sliding his hand onto Keith’s shoulder again. Then his gaze grows softer, warmer as takes a deep breath. “Neither is us avoiding the elephant taking up most of this room.”

  “Kolivan doesn’t care about me and I don’t care about him, except as the coach of my rival,” Keith says coldly, glancing away from Shiro and toward the wall as though it will have the answers for him. Keith feels all the emotions start to rise again and tries to fight them off because he’s not a stupid little kid anymore wondering why he isn’t good enough for Kolivan. He’s almost in his twenties, he’s a Grand Prix finalist and a (Juniors) World champion. He has people in his life who care about him. This shouldn’t be able to hurt him this much still.

 “Keith,” Shiro murmurs as he pulls his hand back, apparently reading the ice in Keith’s voice as rejection. Keith glances back at him while biting his lip, cocking his head to the side as he stares over at Shiro. Shiro doesn’t return it, gaze still heavy with worry.

  “Look, let’s save it for off the ice,” Keith asks, voice softer, more anxious this time as he glances over at Shiro with a small smile. Shiro takes a deep breath and nods, returning his smile with an anxious one of his own. He gives Keith a quick pat on the shoulder and starts asking him about Lance, tone teasing and warm, and Keith tries to focus on that and not the angry feeling still in the pit of his stomach.

  The next day Keith feels less anxious, but it’s not gone entirely, the feeling in the pit of his stomach as he makes his way down to the rink and through his warm up. Keith glances at the sleeves of his short program costume, bright red and orange sequins sparkling in the bright lights of the arena and blinding him. He sort of wishes he had his old all black costumes for a second. Keith takes a few deep breaths as he leans against the wall, relaxing a bit when he sees a familiar kind gaze and orange mustache come toward him.

 “Remember, we want to do well, but we also want to have fun and do our best,” Coran tells him as he pats him on the back, voice warm and with a message laced in it that Keith doesn’t quite understand. Keith glances up at him, nodding and putting on a smile he knows doesn’t reach his eyes.

  “Yeah, okay,” Keith mumbles as he takes another deep breath, trying to find his center as he moves backwards on the ice, toward the center. All he has to do is the routine Coran planned for him, the jumps and twists and he should end up on the top three spots in the podium. He can do this.

  The music starts, _Parisienne Walkways_ filling the air as Keith slides into his starting position. At first, Keith flows through the program easily, trying to be like the bird Coran imagines him as he lands his first quad lutz, spinning on the ice and into his next step sequence with ease. The anxiety from yesterday is gone. Keith goes into his triple axel triple toe a few seconds later, landing one-footed before he goes into a doughnut spin. This is going well.

  Then Keith sees Kolivan in the audience, his discerning gaze staring Keith down from the side lines. He shakes his head and Keith feels his heart drop in his chest. He’s not surprised when his landing on the triple axel is a two-footed stumble, Keith biting his lip and trying to force himself to focus on feeling light and passionate as he goes into the layback spin. He’s a bird. A bird who Kolivan is watching like a hawk, picking out his every weakness. Keith isn’t even surprised when he under rotates his quad salchow in his next combo, he’s just relieved he lands his triple toe. After that, the rest of his routine goes smoothly. But it’s not what he needed to do.

  Keith glides back from the eye, catching Lance’s eye as he reaches the rink’s edge. Lance gives him a small smile, gaze tight and sympathetic. Keith forces himself to return it, because he doesn’t want to stress Lance out. He’s up soon. Coran is telling him what he did wrong, but Keith already knows, knows his timing was all off in the second half. He thanks Coran and apologizes in the same breath as they reach the kiss and cry. He’s second after _Regris_ with two skaters left. Lance and Matt Holt.

  Keith walks out of the kiss and cry and into the lion’s den, a small group of reporters coming towards him with cameras and tape recorders. Keith hates whoever invented rink side reactions. The reporter looks up at him, pushing her hair behind her ear “Keith, how are you feeling about your short program?”

  “Well, I stumbled on the triple axel and I under-rotated the quad salchow, those were timing mistakes. But the rest of the program was okay,” Keith explains as he crosses his arms, glancing up toward the ceiling for a moment. He wonders if he caught that ‘American optimism’ Lance and Coran talk about sometimes well enough. Keith glances back at the reporter and gives them a quick smile. “So, I made a lot of mistakes I need to work on, but hopefully I’ll be in contention? I’m adding another quad for the Olympics if I am, so maybe that will help.”

  Keith’s free after that, dashing to the puppy area so fast he doesn’t remember the walk there, his hippo still under his arm. Keith slides it on the chair next to him, blankly watching the puppies play. Keith can feel Regris staring at him silently from across the room, but Keith does his best to ignore him even as Kolivan’s blank stare is imprinted across his memory. _Not good enough_.

* * *

  Lance glances at the backstage screen, watching Keith’s face fall more and more with each passing moment, trying to hold onto a neutral expression like Lance taught him, but he can see the hurt in his gaze. Lance frowns tightly, watching as Keith cross his arms against his chest, gaze growing tighter as he zones in on something on the screen there. Lance wonders if it’s him and then pushes the thought aside. Keith isn’t that petty. “Hey, do you think Keith’s going to be okay?”

  “I think he’s going to be fine, Lance, he knows what he needs to work on and he didn’t seem upset in the kiss and cry,” Coran tells him in a warm voice as he pats Lance on the shoulder, meeting Lance’s gaze with a warm one of his own, smile sincere. Okay, so Keith probably isn’t upset about his performance, or not _that_ upset, but that only makes Lance even more confused about why Keith looks like someone stole all the puppies out of the waiting area. Coran gives him a more discerning look, pulling him closer to his side from across the rink. “And right now you need to be focusing on you.”

  “Right, right, thanks, Coran,” Lance tells Coran with a small smile as he takes a deep breath because Coran is right. As worried as he is about Keith right now, this is a moment where he needs to focus on himself. Keith, whatever’s going on right now, they’ll work it out later. Right now, it’s time for Lance to let himself slide into the music, to feel the performance and let himself prove to everyone he’s still the skater he knows he can be. Lance can win this all.

  “Any time, my boy,” Coran answers him, gaze knowing and kind as he gives one final half-hug before he pushes him toward the ice, smile warm and gaze firm as he watches Lance skate toward the middle of the rink. Coran believes in him, knows that Lance can get this done, get on that podium. He won’t be upset if he doesn’t, but that faith impassions Lance. Coran made him this beautiful program, sees him as a dragon, and Lance can be that, he can do this. Lance slides into his starting position, letting the beats of Under the Sea. Lance slides into his first step sequence, crossing the ice with fluid motions as he spins and twists, feeling the invisible waves around him as he prepares for his first jump. A quad lutz.

  Lance lands it cleanly, going into his next layback spin as he imagines himself finding the phoenix, beautiful but more hurt than he’d ever let anyone see, and lifting it onto his back. Lance goes into his triple axel triple toe loop, imagining him lifting the bird above the water, freeing it from the weight of its own insecurities. Lance lands that cleanly as well, but he knows he has the next quad coming up and his mind starts to focus on that more than the story in his head. His edges feel rough and the passion is sinking away as his mind goes to the rest of the jumps instead. Lance lands his quad salchow and then the quad toe loop, gliding into his ending pose to the last beat of the song, but the story is gone. Lance thinks the audience can tell.

  Lance skates over to Coran and nods along to his compliments and something about his edges – probably that they were bad – Lance doesn’t hear over his own anxieties rising in chest. He follows Coran to the kiss and cry, watching as the scores slowly reveal themselves. He knows he did well, the question is just how well and if it’s enough that Regris isn’t going to overcome him.

  “Oh my god, that’s my personal best for the technical score,” Lance whispers to Coran as he grabs his arm, squeezing the older man’s bicep tightly as he bounces on his feet. He’s in first. Lance is almost never first after the short. Lance grins brightly, waving at the cameras, though it fades a little as his gaze catches the rest of the score. That’s not where he wants his interpretation or his performance score to be. Not at all. “Not for the PCS though, I did better during the Grand Prix.”

  Coran gives him a quick grin, pressing a hand over Lance’s shoulder, though he can see the quiet understanding in Coran’s gaze. Coran helps him up and guides him to the end of the rink, toward where all the puppies are. Coran gives him a wider smile, hand resting on his shoulder. “Let’s focus on the positive for tonight, and tomorrow in practice we can work on making sure your performance and interpretation is where we want it.”

  “Right, I’m gonna go find Keith,” Lance murmurs as he gives the other man a quick smile, trying to match his energy and energy he had a few minutes ago when he was only looking at his technical score and not the rest. He knows Coran is right, that they can fix this, it just … doesn’t feel like It right now and he wants to focus on something besides that feeling.

  Lance walks around the back of the rink, glancing around the empty space and trying to spot the black bun and bright red top of his boyfriend. He checks the Milkbone puppy corner first, because Keith loves animals (even if he was pouty about there not being cats or lizards too, and Lance has no idea how to explain that people are afraid of lizards to Keith) but the only there is Allura. She smiles and waves at him, long white hair now loose around her shoulders as she wraps her arms around a black lab, expression bright and happy. She did win the Ladies’ short by 30 points.

  Allura catches his eye and gives him a knowing grin, cocking her head to the left, blue eyes sparkling a bit with amusement. Lance gives her a quick grin, because it’s nice and rare to see Allura this relaxed. Lance does a quarter turn on his heel, seeing a familiar messy black bun and bright violet eyes staring back at him from across the room. Keith.

   “Lance!” Keith calls as he catches his eye and runs over to Lance’s side, the anxious look on his face melting into something warmer, grinning as he throws his arms around Lance, hands warm as they press against his back. Keith kisses him quick and soft, gaze bright as he pulls back enough for them to look each other in the eye. “You were great, I was watching backstage. Your quad toe flip was so good, all of your jumps were. You didn’t even wobble on any of the landings. And your edges right before your pancake spin was so smooth.”

  “Thanks, babe, you know I couldn’t have done it without your help,” Lance answers him softly as he wraps an arm around his waist, because if Keith is going to be brave enough for PDA for him, Lance is going to acknowledge it. Plus, he likes holding onto his boyfriend now that he’s doing well, in first place – and Lance is sure the anxiety of that will hit him later – and Keith is looking at him like he hung the moon for it. it isn’t Lance’s favorite skate he’s ever done, but it’s getting better and he has people who believe in him, who look at him like that. Keith smiles, soft and sweet, and Lance thinks tonight’s going to be nice. Keith’s in third, sure, but only by the slightest of margins. Lance knows he can get himself back on that podium if he tries hard enough and there’s no one more determined than Keith. They’ll both be fine.

  Except Keith looks away suddenly, gaze growing tighter as he spots something across the rink from them. Is it more paparazzi? But no, all Lance sees there is Kolivan and his student Regris – which, Keith had been thrown by seeing Kolivan on the train too.  “Keith?”

  “Huh, what? Sorry,” Keith mumbles, smile weaker as he looks back up at Lance, squeezing into his side and sliding his own arm around Lance’s waist too. Keith gives him a quick once over, smile bolder this time. “Your costume looked nice too.”

  “It’s not new,” Lance reminds him with a playful scoff, watching Keith glance away from him and back toward the rink, something anxious entering his gaze again. Lance can’t tell if it’s because of the coach and skater still in the corner or because Keith feels bad about his short program. He’s done worse, much worse – they both have – but Keith gets in his own head very easily and he makes decisions from that which aren’t always the best, and well, Lance is going to try and stop that before it can happen. “Keith, do you want to talk about what happened out there for you? Do you want to talk about how you’re feeling?”

  “What? I’m fine,” Keith says with a neutral expression, but then he crosses his arms and takes a half-step away from Lance until they’re not touching anymore. No, Keith’s upset about … something. Something in this rink. Lance just needs to figure out what and get him to talk about it. Keith can do this.

  “Keith,” Lance says softly, sliding towards Keith and filling in the space Keith tried to create with his body. He waits to see if Keith moves away from him, but he doesn’t, and Lance decides to take that as a good sign. Lance gives Keith a warm smile, lacing his fingers through Keith’s again to try and establish some kind of contact. Keith squeezes his hand and gives Lance a small crooked smile that Lance returns in full force. They’re getting somewhere now. “Your spins were great.”

  “They were okay. It’s fine, though, really,” Keith promises him, gaze surprisingly sincere as he stares back at him. Lance blinks owlishly, because wait, is this not about his score or the fact that Regris is currently ahead of him? If it’s not, then well, Lance is lost about what he’s

supposed to comforting Keith about here. Keith looks more determined now, gaze turning away from the ice and back to Lance. There’s the hardworking, determined boy Lance likes so much. “I’m still third somehow, which means as long as I skate clean in the Free I can still make it to first or second. I’ve done the math.”

  “Oh, wait, really? You’re terrible at math,” Lance mutters, eyebrows shooting up as he considers the idea. Keith scowls at him for a second, though there’s no heat behind his gaze, a hint of amusement in his eyes. Lance likes to think they’re both thinking the same thing, ‘Leave the math to Pidge’ they’re first inside joke as a couple. The first time Keith tried to comfort him. Keith looks away, smile still there, but expression almost wistful as Keith gazes down at the ground. “Sorry, sorry, but okay, what is upsetting you then? Because you are upset.”

  “It’s Kolivan, I – it’s complicated,” Keith groans as he runs a hand through his hair, eyes meeting Lance’s as he finally turns his face away from the ice. And yeah, Lance has kind of gotten that. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to work through this with Keith.

  “You know I love drama, sweetheart,” Lance reminds him with a wriggle of his eyebrows, earning a small giggle from Keith, the tension in his expression disappearing for a moment. Then it comes back, Keith biting his lip as he glances at Kolivan and Regris again out of the corner of his eye. Okay, so the issue is Kolivan. Now Lance just needs to find out what it is and find a way to get Keith’s mind off of it and back on Nationals and them and if they’re going to try to fix Coran up with Allura’s coach. “Keith, was Kolivan your coach before Shiro or something? Did it end badly?”

  “I wish, that would be a lot easier,” Keith tells him in a low voice, shaking his head a bit as his gaze locks on the other man even more fully, across the rink with his newest student. Now Lance is even more lost, because he didn’t think of that as something easy. Lance follows his line of vision to the ice, squeezing Keith’s hand as he waits for the answer. “He’s my uncle.”

  Oh. Well, Lance did say he loves the drama and he guesses this is a big one, because he has no idea how to get Keith’s attention off of that.

 


	2. Free Skate

 Lance takes in Keith’s words and tries to process them, because that’s not what he expected to hear. Keith doesn’t talk about his family much outside of Shiro, and when someone skates, Takashi Shirogane is kind of an unavoidable topic anyway.  Lance takes a deep breath and tries to think about how to handle this mystery uncle Keith doesn’t seem thrilled to see. Does Lance hug him? Ask if he’s okay? But no, this is Keith and asking Keith questions often helps him feel better and helps him to focus enough to figure out what he’s feeling.

  And besides Lance has a lot of questions.

  “You’re uncle?! What are you talking about? Why wouldn’t the press have been all over your and Shiro’s uncle coaching someone else?” Lance asks as he furrows his brow, looking over at Kolivan and then back to Keith. There is a slight resemblance in their pout and they both have serious guy thing going on, so Lance can see his influence, though Kolivan is like three times Keith’s size. Lance guesses that’s where Shiro comes in. Keith is giving Lance an exasperated look, eyebrows pinched as he stares over at him. Oh, right. Lance guesses he should ask the obvious question here. “Wait, why does he coach someone else?!”

  “My uncle, as in my mom’s brother,” Keith answers him with a small sigh, narrowing his gaze as he glances over at the other man. Keith bites his lip as he stares at him, gaze tight as he leans forward. Lance is pretty sure that Kolivan must know Keith’s watching him, but he doesn’t move an inch. Lance frowns tightly at that, wondering what happened between Hinata and her brother in the last five years that he got close to Keith and then had a falling out with him. Unless Lance has the timeline for when Keith moved in with the Shiroganes' wrong? “My biological mother.”

  “Oh,” Lance murmurs softly, expression blank for a moment before the full meaning of Keith’s words hit him. That makes more sense. Lance slowly turns his eyes to Keith. “Oh shit.”

 “Oh, shit is right,” Keith mutters as he crosses his arms tightly against his chest, gaze still on the man across the ice. Lance has never dealt with a situation like this before and he’s not really sure what to say. Lance likes to think that he’s gotten pretty good at recognizing Keith’s moods and helping to calm or encourage them, but this is new territory for him. He’s got the sense that it is for Keith too, and he has to wonder how long it’s been since he saw his uncle.

  Lance follows his line of sight, frowning slightly as he watches the other man, a feeling of dread coming over him he couldn’t quite explain. Something about Kolivan makes him uncomfortable now, and no, not just that. Keith was in foster care from the age of 8. Kolivan has been training students for at least five or six years. That means he, he never took Keith in, he never came to get him. Lance grabs Keith’s hand, squeezing it softly until Keith finally tears his gaze away from Kolivan and back to Lance. “Wait, if your uncle is alive …”

  “Why didn’t I live with him after my parents died?” Keith asks with a raised an eyebrow, smirking in a way that’s more bitter than confident. Lance gives a small nod, squeezing his hand as Keith shifts toward him. Keith lets out a small sigh, gaze growing softer, more vulnerable as he leans into him. “Trust me, I’ve wondered the same thing plenty of times.”

  “So, what are you gonna do?” Lance mutters as he takes Keith’s left hand and gives it a light squeeze in time with his right. Keith gives him a weak half-smile, the one that Lance thinks means he appreciates his help even if it’s not really helping. Or that he’s sick. It can go either way. Lance glances over at Kolivan out of the corner of his eye, narrowing his eyes as the other man keeps talking to Regris like he and Keith haven’t been staring him down for ten minutes. “Do you want me to come with?”

  “To what?” Keith says as he glances at Lance out of the corner of his eye, scrunching his eyebrows together as he stares at him. Lance raises an eyebrow, wondering if Keith’s being purposefully dense or just messing with him. But no, Keith looks genuinely confused, cocking his head to the side as though he’s trying to solve the secret meaning behind Lance’s words. Okay, Lance needs a new plan.

  Lance lets out a small scoff, shaking his head a bit as he gives Keith a tighter look. Maybe keeping things light will help? Lance squeezes his hands again, glancing over at Kolivan before turning his gaze back to Keith, who still looks like he can’t find the plot to save his life. “To talk to him, Keith, what do you think?”

  “I’m not going to talk to him,” Keith snaps, but there’s more anxiousness to his voice than anger, gaze flitting to the ground. He bites his lips as he pulls his hands back, giving Lance one quick squeeze before he crosses his arms. Lance sees the tell-tale sign of Keith running his hand over his thumb, fingers brushing over his skin in an almost rhythmic pattern. Lance always likes watching Keith do that, when it’s something sweet rather than Keith being anxious like now. “I haven’t seen since I was 9, I have no interest in seeing him now.”

  “Keith, I don’t want to tell you what to do, not like I could,” Lance murmurs in a soft voice, earning a small laugh from his boyfriend as he peers back up at him. Lance grins back at him, leaning forward as he takes a step into Keith’s space, so their legs are lined up side by side. Keith’s laughter fades as his gaze turns back into something tight and anxious. Lance gives him a small smile, brushing his hand over Keith’s cheek. then his gaze grows more serious, eyebrows sloping to the side as he looks down at Keith. “But he’s your uncle right? I know I’m biased because I’m close with my family and it doesn’t seem like he’s gunning for any uncle of the year’s awards, but he is your family.”

  “I guess,” Keith mumbles as his gaze grows more tender, eyebrows sloping to the side as he reaches out and grabs his right hand again. Lance gives him a small smile, leaning forward some more so their foreheads brush together. Keith squeezes Lance’s hand as he takes another quick glance at Kolivan, who Lance swears is watching them whenever they look away from him. He can feel his gaze from across the room.

  “And don’t get me wrong, I know you have a family here, with Hinata and Shiro and Coran and _me_ too,” Lance lists off with a wide smile, taking time to emphasis his own name with a hint of a smirk. Keith returns the smile with a warm one of his own, rolling his eyes even as something tender comes into his gaze. Lance presses a quick kiss to his cheek, before he gives Keith a warmer look again, gaze soft as he squeezes Keith’s hand again. “But it couldn’t hurt to have a little more, and if not, well you could get some kind of closure – not that you need it but -”

  “No, I do, and I think you’re right,” Keith says with a small grin of his own as he cocks his head to the side. Lance sees his gaze flick over to Kolivan for a second before it goes back to Lance, something of the determination he has on the ice back in his gaze as he looks into Lance’s eyes. Whatever happens with Kolivan, Lance knows that Keith will be okay. “Look, I’m going to ask him if he wants to grab lunch or coffee or, well, something. I’ll meet you back in one of the rooms later?”

  “Yeah, of course,” Lance promises as he leans over to kiss Keith, eyes still slightly open as the other boy meets his lips. He likes to watch Keith’s face when it goes all soft and lax, like Lance is the person he trusts the most in the world. “I’ll see you later babe.”

  Lance walks back and out of the rink, willing himself not to look back as he makes his way outside. The hotel is only a door down, so Lance keeps going, pushing his way through the front doors with a low exhale, hands shaking a little as he crosses the room. Lance’s win is finally hitting him with full force now that he doesn’t have anything else to focus on. He got first, by a pretty healthy margin. But not with a healthy PCS score, at least not for him.

  That makes the victory feel pretty damn hollow, at least for Lance as he comes to the elevator. Three floors and several flashes to his blank face on the ice and lack of flourishes across his mind. He almost doesn’t remember pushing through the door to his and Coran’s room, finding himself face to face with Coran and Allura, both of them smiling brightly as he slides into the nearest chair.

  “Lance! Where’s Keith?” Allura calls as she stands up from the table, waving in a way that borders on regal. Her long white hair is in a simple braid over her shoulder, a sharp contrast to the bright pink of her sweater and the pale blue of her earrings. She’s smiling warmly as she leans over the table to give him a quick hug, and Lance returns it with a bright grin of his own, gaze growing softer. Lance has known her since he was 7 and had a crush on her until two years ago. They’ve been good friends ever since he finally got over that. “Well, nothing to worry about, I was coming to congratulate both of you, but I’m happy to see you as well. You skated beautifully.”

  “Beautifully?” Lance asks as he raises an eyebrow, giving Allura and Coran a mischievous look. Lance grins widely, preening at the compliment even as it makes some of his insecurities rise in his chest. Because he didn’t skate _beautifully_ this time. He knows that in his gut. technically great and with grace? Sure. But there was no real beauty there, none of the performance he knows – or wants to believe – he’s capable of. “Well you could say that. I have to admit that I was pretty in the zone, and the whole dance of the dragon theme? Well, let’s just say I took flight across the ice.”

  “You were technically perfect,” Allura agrees with a warm smile as she sits up straighter at the table, posture as perfect as her braid and her triple axels. Lance tries to return the smile with an even brighter, wider one of his own, because he should be happy. He’s in first place. He’s doing really well, better than really well even. As long as he does just as well tomorrow, there’s every chance in the world that he’ll be at the Olympics next month.

  Which, okay, that might be part of why Lance can’t make this feel as good as it should, especially in the face of that PCS score.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” Lance crows, his own voice rising as Allura gives him a slight eye roll, smirking playfully. Allura gives him a knowing look as she leans forward, handing Lance her sleeve of fries. He can see her own gold medal sitting on the table a few inches away from her, the women having finished their free skate yesterday. Allura won and Lance can’t wait to see to see her get a medal at the Olympics. He just hopes he gets to see it in person. Allura hops up and walks past him, patting him on the shoulder as she shares a knowing look with her dad before disappearing out of the room. Ah, time for a coach and student talk.

   “You’re nervous, I know the signs, but you don’t need to be Lance. You skated beautifully and with spirit,” Coran tells him as he lays a hand across his shoulder, stealing one of his fries with his other hand. Coran grins over him as he runs his head through his red hair, gaze growing more tender as he squeezes his shoulder softly. “You know that, right?”

  “Of course, there’s just a lot more to lose coming down from the front, I guess,” Lance mutters with a quick smile, trying to keep it as real looking as possible. He knows Coran is right, he did well, better than even, but it doesn’t change the way his stomach is sinking every time he thinks about his short program or his routines at the grand prix final. Somewhere between the Cup of China and then, maybe when they added the fifth quad, he lost his magic as a performer. Lance only hopes that he can get it back.

* * *

  Keith takes a few deep breaths as he watches Lance walk out of the rink, doors falling shut with a strange sense of finality. Keith’s alone. A part of Keith, the part that feels like he might throw up as he makes his way toward the end of the rink, wishes he had asked Lance to stay. Having him at his side would probably make this easier. But no, this is Keith’s family and Keith’s problem to deal with. It’s not fair to burden Lance with something like this when they’ve only been dating for a few months. Hell, he doesn’t even want to make Shiro deal with this, and he’s been in Keith’s life for five years.

  No, this is Keith’s problem to solve alone. He just hopes the solution doesn’t end up making him feel like he’s eight years old and alone again.

  “Kolivan!” Keith calls across the rink, voice loud and ringing so that everyone on the ice turns their gaze toward him. Keith lets out a low exhale, wincing a bit as everyone is staring at him. It’s bad enough when it happens on the ice, it’s even worse now that it’s because of him and not some jump he did. Keith takes a deep breath as he walks across the ice stiffly to stand at Kolivan’s side, giving Regris a weak shrug before he turns his gaze back to Kolivan, who is giving him a look Keith can’t quite discern. “I – can I talk to you? Alone?”

  “Of course,” Kolivan says as he walks over to his side, arms crossed tightly against his chest. Keith mimics his posture as he slinks around the other side of the ice, glancing down the hall as he waits for Kolivan to finish up with his student. Much to his surprise, Kolivan doesn’t make him wait for more than a few minutes. “Regris, go to the rooms ahead of me. Work on your flexibility.”

  Keith nods as he gives Regris a half-smile that feels more like a grimace, turning on one heel. Regris looks between them, mouth pressed into a thin line and gaze curious, hands locked around his smart phone. They say he’s even more adept with technology than Lance, Instagram updating during his routines somehow. Keith doesn’t even know what that means. Regris seems to realize he’s not getting answers, because he walks out of the rink with a quick wave. They’re finally alone. Kolivan walks down the other hallway, Keith running after him. “Thank you. I thought we could grab coffee, or something. You – you owe me an explanation for why you’re here. Or well, not here. But why you didn’t tell me you were here. Or anywhere.”

  “You’re right, I do owe you that much. I would be happy to have coffee with you by the rink,” Kolivan agrees in a neutral voice as they enter the rest area of the stadium. There’s no emotion, no guilt but also no dismissal. Keith has no idea where they stand, and he almost runs into Kolivan’s back when the older man comes to a full stop by one the blue and white plastic tables. “Here, please sit down. I imagine you’re wondering why I did not offer to home you after your mother died.”

  “Yeah,” Keith admits as he slides into the chair, slumping slightly as he runs his fingers across his thumb. He looks down at the table, wishing he could somehow melt into it as the silence thickens around them. Kolivan isn’t saying anything and it’s makes Keith want to scream at something or punch a wall or well, anything but what he’s doing right now, sitting at a table with a man who wants nothing to do with him. This was a mistake.

  “It was … complicated,” Kolivan tells him, a touch of regret in his voice as he glances over at Keith. Keith raises an eyebrow, glaring hotly for a second before he can stop himself, because it was complicated for Kolivan? He was eight. Keith takes a few deep breaths, trying to keep himself calm as he locks his eyes on his uncle. He’s only going to get this explanation if he listens. “I was in the army at the time, stationed oversea most of the time. I was still single and there was no one to take care of you or watch over you. Sending you to foster care seemed like the better choice.”

  “It wasn’t,” Keith snaps before he can stop himself, voice bordering on a growl as he glares up at the other man. Keith slams one hand on the table and then takes a few deep breaths again, closing his eyes as he tries to focus. He’s not a little kid anymore. He has Shiro and Hinata and Coran and Lance, and he thinks in time he’ll have Hunk and Pidge too even. He’s not alone anymore. Not in the same way, anyway. “No, sorry. It worked out in the end, it just took a while. I know you were doing what you thought was best I just wish ...”

  “I’d thought something else was best?” Kolivan asks with a small smile, one that is a bit crooked like Keith’s own. Keith swallows and then looks away, not able to take the way his stomach is churning at the sight. It’s not that he doesn’t love his life, but he’s had to fight for everything, every win, every step, every person that loves him. Sometimes Keith wonders what life would’ve been like if things had been a little less difficult from the start, if he’d had some kind of foundation to work from besides just surviving. Maybe he wouldn’t be such a mess.

  “Something like that,” Keith mutters as he crosses his arms against his chest, raising an eyebrow as he glances up at Kolivan. Okay, they’ve got one half of this out of the way. But Kolivan isn’t single now – he’s married to someone named Antok – and more to the point, he’s a coach. “Why didn’t you take me on as a student? Once I started skating, I mean. You were coaching by the time I was 13.”

  “You started working with Shiro around then and I knew he and his mother had taken you in,” Kolivan explains, voice returning to that emotionless voice from before, giving away nothing. Keith has no idea if Kolivan regrets not coming for him, not training him. Keith flicks his gaze over to the coffee stand in the corner, eyes scanning across a list of ingredients. He can focus on that instead of how he suddenly feels too warm. “I felt they could help you more as a family than I could.”

  “Yeah,” Keith says in a small voice, cocking his head to the side as he considers Kolivan’s words. He doesn’t think Kolivan is wrong, exactly. After all, Kolivan doesn’t exactly come off as the fatherly type. And what few good qualities Keith has, what worth, is all thanks to Shiro. He’s the only reason Keith is here right now or anywhere besides probably jail. But still, Kolivan’s words feel well. Dismissive.

 “But I could be of help now,” Kolivan tells him, voice growing firmer as he places a hand on the table. Keith raises an eyebrow, cocking his head to the side as he crosses his arms just a hair more defensively. He’s almost 19, an adult. He doesn’t need a parent now. It’s too late for Kolivan to just come barging into his life even if Keith wanted one. His choices, good and bad, are his own and he doesn’t need anyone to make them for him. “I’m not a nurturing man, but I am an excellent coach.”

  “I have a coach,” Keith reminds him, scrunching his eyebrows together as he stares at the man across from him. He thought Kolivan was going to ask to see him more often or something, but this is even weirder. Keith gives him a slight smirk, thinking of his coach and feeling a swell of pride in his chest. “Coran’s methods might be … unorthodox, but he’s a great coach and he’s helped me improve a lot this season.”

  “I agree, but there’s only so far he can take you, and if you want to be competitive for the next 10 years, you need to master those quads rather than letting them master you. You at least need a jump coach,” Kolivan answers matter of fact, giving Keith a piercing gaze that makes him swallow deeply. Kolivan isn’t wrong. Keith’s jumps haven’t gotten any better than where they were at the beginning of the season, landings still shaky and under-rotations happening more often than Keith would like to admit. “Besides, don’t you feel guilty, stealing away your boyfriend’s coach’s time and energy when he could be helping Lance to reach new heights.”

  Keith shakes his head, biting his lip as he looks away from Kolivan. That’s a possibility he hasn’t thought about before, but now that Kolivan’s said it, it makes more sense than Keith would like to admit. Keith knows he’s a lot for anyone to deal with and Coran was Lance’s coach first. But … they’d tell him if he was making things worse, wouldn’t they? “It isn’t like that.”

  “Of course, not on purpose. But when a coach like that has to split their time between two students, it’s inevitable someone ends up feeling rejected,” Kolivan says as he gives Keith another once over, just as dismissive as the one on the train. Keith bites his lips and thinks back to his last year with Shiro, when he started coaching Pidge and working with Matt’s on his jumps. Keith had felt lonelier that year, even if Shiro hadn’t meant to ignore him. And he’s a lot more work than the Holt siblings. “Just think about what I said, Keith.”

  Keith nods as he rolls to his feet, giving Kolivan a quick wave goodbye. Kolivan slides something into Keith’s hand before he walks away in the other direction. It’s a business card. Of course, it is. Keith takes a deep breath and makes his way around the rink, barely feeling the cold air around him or the bright sun on his face as he goes out the back doors and toward his hotel. So much for not feeling like he’s eight and alone again. Kolivan had pulled that off in a matter of minutes.

  Keith … he doesn’t want to be, has never wanted to be a burden on the people around him. He kind of worked through that, mostly, with Shiro, but he can’t help but feel wonder if that isn’t true or if he just transferred that over to Lance and Coran. After all, they were a perfect team before Keith got there. Maybe he’s just been making things harder for both of them.

  But no, Lance is his boyfriend, he must like him, right? Right. Keith’s just being stupid. Keith pushes through the door to Lance’s room, pushing past Lance and toward the bed. He feels like he needs to be sitting for this conversation.

  “Keith, babe, are you okay?” Lance asks as he watches Keith slump onto the bed, bringing his hand to his face and then dropping it just as quickly. He should’ve been subtler, but that’s never been a strong suit of Keith’s. it’s why he doesn’t skate to ballet that often. Keith peeks over at Lance through his hands, biting his lip as he sees Lance staring at him, narrowing his gaze as he takes a few steps toward him. “What did he say?”

  “He couldn’t take me because he was in the army and single at the time,” Keith answers him softly, gaze confused and downcast as he clutches the comforter with his hands. Lance slides down on to the table next to him, sliding one arm across his shoulder and pulling him closer. Keith takes a deep breath, closing his eyes for a minute before opening them again, because now he’s going to rip off the Band-Aid. “And he offered to be my new jump coach because my jumps still suck, and Coran isn’t fixing them.”

  “What?!” Lance cries as he punches the side of the bed with his fist, making Keith look up at him with wide eyes. Lance’s expression is wild, mouth hanging open and eyebrows raised, shaking his head back and forth. Anger and offense, Keith thinks for him and Coran, enters Lance’s gaze as he digs his hands into the blankets even more. His voice is high and tight when he next speaks, eyebrows pressed together when he next speaks. “First of all, Coran is a great coach, and second of all, your jumps are gorgeous, so screw that!”

  “Of course, Coran is, but he’s not a jump coach and let’s be realistic, I could use one,” Keith points out with a playful eye roll, and Lance looks away so Keith can’t see his expression. Keith bites his lip, because he feels like that probably isn’t good? Maybe Lance doesn’t want to see the confirmation in his gaze or maybe he’s annoyed about sharing a coach and is just afraid to admit it. it’s a lot to ask of someone in an Olympic season. “They should be better than where they are especially since I didn’t grow – look, it’s not Coran’s fault. It’s mine and we don’t need to worry about it until after the Olympics. Let’s just be together tonight.”

  “I, of course Keith,” Lance mutters as he leans over and takes his hands, smile tender as Keith leans in to press his lips to Lance’s own. Keith knows, no matter what else happens, he doesn’t want this to end. He’s never liked anyone as much as he likes Lance. He just hopes that keeping it doesn’t mean he has to leave their team.

* * *

  Keith is staring at him over his egg sandwich, gaze pinched in a way Lance feels like means trouble. They haven’t talked since Keith left his room last night after dropping his Kolivan bombshell. Lance wants to focus on his performance, should focus on his performance like Keith said. But it’s hard when he can’t get his mind off of his own PCS scores or the possibility Keith might jump ship. Lance has gotten used to having Keith there at the rink with him every day, used to his little smiles and smirks and the way he watches Lance from across the room. He doesn’t want to lose that. “Lance, you seem anxious, are you feeling okay?”

  “I’m great, babe, just a little anxious about the free skater later,” Lance promises Keith as he grins over at him warmly, hoping it reaches his eyes. He isn’t feeling it, not really, but fake it till you make it, right? Keith gives him a knowing look, eyebrows scrunching together as he reaches one hand over to brush his palm over Lance’s knuckles, so feather-light Lance almost misses the touch. Sometimes Keith’s little touches and hugs are so soft, so light, it’s like he thinks Lance might break in half. “You know how it is, I’m sure you’re feeling it too.”

  “I do have to work my way back up from third,” Keith says with a small snort, gaze self-deprecating as he looks over at Lance. Lance grins a bit at that, Lance leaning in so their eyes meet. It’s nice, dating someone who understands, who’s living through the same fears as him. Keith’s gaze grows gentler as he brushes his hands over Lance’s knuckles and lifts his hand up in the air. “But I know, no matter what happens, you’re going to skate your best and with all your heart.”

  “Most of the time you’re so grumpy, and then every once in a while, you’ll say something so cheesy and I have no idea what to do with it,” Lance mumbles between fits of laughter, not able to hold them in even in the face of his boyfriend’s glare. Keith’s being so sweet, so gentle, and Lance does love it, loves that he’s one of the few people who ever gets to see this side of Keith. But he also can’t help teasing him a bit, because when Keith gets sappy, he really goes for it. Keith’s glare fades away into a soft eye roll, the other boy melting into putty in the face of Lance’s adoration.

  “Oh please, coming from you? The cheesiest guy I know?” Keith huffs as he leans over the table, poking Lance in the chest gently. Lance shrugs easily, sliding one hand behind his head as he rubs his neck. He can’t deny the claim, and even if he could he wouldn’t want to. His cheese is part of his charm, and besides his fans and Keith deserve some cheesiness. Keith leans in smirking as his voice grows a bit raspier with each word. “Do you not remember your pose during the Olympic promo for NBC?”

  Lance raises an eyebrow and presses his hand over his heart in mock offense, unable to believe his boyfriend’s words. “Hey! That pose was a classic! And at least I didn’t say we were all like snowflakes once! Though that was very cute.”

  “Okay, but are you sure that’s the only thing bugging you?” Keith asks in a soft voice, gaze growing softer as he brushes a hand over Lance’s wrist. Lance smiles, tender and warm as he realizes what Keith was doing. Lance sees what Keith was doing, trying to get Lance in a better mood, a lighter mood so he could talk about something more serious. Lance … he’s not going to talk about it, not right now when the free skate is later today, and he has no ideas which of his fears are real or not. But he appreciates that Keith would be willing if Lance had been ready to talk about his insecurities about his PCS and well … Keith.

  “Yes, Keith, now go off and mentally prep yourself, because we can’t talk again until after our programs,” Lance tells him as he takes his hand and kisses his fingers, because he needs to reclaim his cheesy throne. Keith flushes and looks up at the ceiling, face turning as red as the sequins on his free skate costume. Keith finally meets Lance’s gaze again, cheeks fading to a dusty pink as Lance lets go of his hand and wriggles his eyebrows at him.

  “Okay,” Keith says as he leans up to press a quick kiss to Lance’s cheek. Keith stands up, walking toward the door and grabbing his bag for the rink with one hand. He always wants to start warming up so early, sometimes Lance worries he’s overworking himself. “Whatever happens, I’ll see you tonight.”

  Lance spends the rest of the morning warming up, panicking, trying to get his mind off of his free skate with _Animal Crossing_. Rinse, wash, repeat. He’s almost surprised to find himself in costume a few hours later, ice beneath his feet as he watches Coran come to the rink side with a bright smile. Lance glances around, wondering if Keith is nearby, but he’s skating next so Lance can’t see him. It’s fine. He needs to focus anyway and Keith giving him one of his adorable, crooked smiles would only be a distraction. Lance is doing just fine.

  “Okay Lance, just remember, you’re a dragon!” Coran cries as Lance comes to the edge of the ice, having just finished his last warmup. Coran’s eyes are bright and far away, lost in the performance they imagined together. lance can see it too, the wind and the waves, the brightness of his blue and turquoise scales glittering in the bright sun over the ocean. But the image fades away as quickly as it comes. “Any obstacle out there, jump or spin, you can conquer. There’s nothing that can stand in your way.”

  Lane nods even as he takes a deep breath, nervous energy running through him. He’s nervous, wringing his hands out as he turns around to face the eye. Coran pats him on the back and gives him a small push toward the ice. “Except a phoenix and whatever Regris’ theme is this year.”

  “I think he’s a fencer or maybe a pirate, or a knight? Something with a sword,” Coran muses and Lance twists his hand around to look at Coran again. Coran brushes a hand over his mustache thoughtfully, and Lance can’t help laughing warmly as he moves backward on the ice a little more. “It’s a good theme, but not as good as ours. Now go out there and have fun!”

  “I’ll try,” Lance promises in a soft voice, not able to keep the shakiness out of his voice. He doesn’t think that he’s going to be able to pull this off in his gut, can’t feel the music even as it starts to play around him. It’s there, but Lance can’t feel it as he slides into his first step sequence, twisting across the ice with an easy grace.

  Lance goes into his first jump, lifting off and doing a quad Lutz with four perfect rotations, landing on the ground before going into a doughnut spin. He tries to remember being the dragon, diving into the ocean to lift the Phoenix from the waves below, but suddenly Lance doesn’t know what to do. Does the phoenix even want to be saved? Maybe it’s happy where it is, struggling but still with him, not flying away where Lance can’t follow him. The plot doesn’t come back to him even as he lands his next quad toe loop into a triple loop. He lands each of his eight jumps, no errors, no mistakes. Every move is perfect. But he never gets the story back, face completely blank for most of the performance.

  “Lance! You didn’t get one error for your technical scores,” Coran cries as he pulls him into a tight half-hug, voice bright and full of laughter. Lance grins back at him, hugging him tightly as they walk over to the kiss and cry, the stuffed shark tight under his arm as he takes his seat. The scores start to flicker across the screen, the technical score bright and glaring in front of Lance. It’s not perfect, of course, but it’s pretty damn close, Lance has to admit to himself. Lance grins, slow and warm, basking in Coran’s bright eyes and kind words. “Not a one. I’m so proud of you, my boy.”

  “Look at the PCS scores,” Lance mutters in a tight voice, expression falling as he watches the score flash across the screen again. He missed it the first time, too caught up in the excitement of the technical score. It’s the lowest he’s ever gotten in his senior career and low enough that Lance doesn’t think he’s going to win the free skate. Coran’s smile grows a little tighter as Lance squeezes the shark to his chest. He isn’t an artist anymore.

* * *

  Keith glides onto the ice, trying to glance up at the scoreboard to see how Lance did. he can’t quite make it out from the ice, though, screen too far away. Keith only saw bits and pieces of his skate from where he was, but he knows Lance was technically perfect. Every move, every jump a work of art. But it felt different, more distant than his other performances. Lost. Keith is a little worried, but he can’t talk to Lance right now. Not when he’s on the ice, Coran’s hand firm on his shoulder as Keith looks up at him. He needs to focus on the skate, so he can get through this and make sure Lance is okay.  

  “Okay, remember you’re a beautiful bird, and you’ve been hurt, you’ve been angry and confused and so many other things,” Coran muses, eyes bright and dreamy as he stares down at Keith. Keith nods tightly, biting his lip as he stares back at Coran, because yeah, he can definitely relate to this bird. Especially this weekend when wounds he’s tried to ignore for a decade suddenly being reopened out of nowhere. Maybe that’s how the phoenix is reborn so many times, it just relives its pain over and over again. “But those things only made you stronger, and now your rising up with the help of the people who care about you.”

  “Okay,” Keith mumbles in a confused voice, trying to parse out his words with a slight frown. He gets the hurt and angry part, and he’s definitely confused right now, but not the stronger part. Keith’s never felt weaker than he has in the past few days, so many things coming to a head once he can’t even keep track of them.

  “Are you sure you’ve got it, Keith?” Coran asks in a warm voice as he rests his right hand on his shoulder, squeezing softly, as though he can sense Keith’s confusion. Or maybe he can see it in Keith’s face, in the way he scrunches his eyebrows together and is biting his lip. Coran pats him on the shoulder again, gaze growing a little warmer, a little softer as he raises an eyebrow. Keith thinks maybe … maybe Coran is the type of person who thinks being vulnerable is being strong? Keith isn’t, but

  “I – I think so,” Keith says as he thinks over what Coran said, over all the emotions churning in his stomach right now. Keith nods a little more firmly, a familiar spark coming into his gaze as he presses one hand into the air, fist pumping a little. Coran chortles, pulling back to stare at Keith as he turns on his heel. He might not be strong yet, but he can be. Keith knows if he works hard and relies on himself, he can do this. “Yeah, I do. I’m a bird rising from the ashes to become something different, something mature.”

  “Something like that,” Coran calls as he pats him on the back, eyes crinkling as he smiles at Keith. Coran gives him one final pat on the shoulder, and then Keith turns on his heel, gazing out at the ice. He can do this. “Now go out there and have fun!”

  Keith glides out onto the ice, and spirals around the ice, body shifting and moving across the ice as he does first Bielmann spiel. Keith feels like a bird, body light and swift as he goes into another step sequence, hands flying through the air with his wrists bent at an awkward angle as he steadies himself. It’s time for him to soar. Keith goes into first jump, a triple axel from a spread eagle, and lands it with a precision he hasn’t had in months. He’s a phoenix and this is next rebirth. Keith goes into his next spin, body turning, and Keith sees red and black feathers spreading out in front of his gaze.

  He’s the phoenix and each move, each jump shows how he’s coming back to life. The dragon saved him from drowning, and now Keith is going to show the dragon it was worth it, that he was worth it. Keith goes into his quad toe and then his double loop, landing both perfectly, and then immediately goes into another triple axel. Keith smirks, flinging his arms out, this time with wrists that are strong and straight as he readies himself for the next set of turns. Keith lands every jump, every spin perfect, every moment lined up with the idea that he’s growing up and freeing everyone from himself – including himself. Keith is the phoenix, which means instead of relying on people, he has to die and be reborn from his pain. He gets it now.

  “Keith! That was so, so beautiful,” Coran cries as he pulls him into a tight hug, brushing a hand across his face as Keith puts on his ice walk things. Keith smiles and nods, expression blank as he tries to come out of the story and out of his head. Keith knows he did well, can sense it in his bones and the way Coran is holding him up. He just wishes he knew how well. After he gets his sliders on, Coran hands him a stuffed hippo, grey with a red ribbon around their neck. “Here, take this hippo, you deserve a million of them. The way you moved your wrist on that early step sequence, it was just like a bird with a broken wing.”

  Keith shrugs a little, biting his lip as he glances over at Coran, feeling touched and sheepish at the same time. He doesn’t usually change his choreography on his own, only his jumps or jump layout. This had been a pretty big risk, and it looks like it paid off. Keith glances over at Coran, smirking even as the slight flush over his face reveals his sheepishness. Keith takes a deep breath as he glances over at the scoreboard, numbers not changing. “Yeah, we talked about it in practice that one time, so I figured I should do it?”

  “You figured right, that was absolutely gorgeous,” Coran tells him, voice filled with a warm pride that makes Keith smile softly. He squeezes his shoulder, Keith’s gaze flicking away from the scoreboard and back to Coran for a second. Coran squeezes his arms again, and Keith takes a deep breath as he runs a hand over his face. Keith can feel his blood rushing to his head as the minutes pass by, somehow feeling slower and slower each moment his score doesn’t show up onscreen. “Whatever happens, always remember that.”

  “Of course,” Keith says even as he glances back up at the scoreboard with a tight gaze. Nothing changes. Apparently, they must be arguing about his rotations. Keith felt clean on the ice, but that can be hard to tell when he’s flinging himself through the air and he can’t see how his legs are twisting through the air. Keith takes another deep breath, clenching one hand into a fist and the other more tightly around his hippo.

  “I bet this will go viral online, Lance will be so proud of you,” Coran tells him with a twinkling smile, throwing an arm around his shoulder. Lance. They skated back to back, so Keith didn’t get a chance to see him before he skated. Keith glances around the kiss and cry, trying to see if he can catch the sight of his boyfriend anywhere around here. Lance’s warm smile and tender gaze always makes his nerves relax a bit when he catches them from across the rink or by the kiss and cry. But Lance is nowhere to be seen.

  Keith raises an eyebrow, not able to stop himself from smirking a bit as he glances over at Coran. The meaning of his words hit him, and Keith can’t help making fun of himself a bit. He just wishes the joke he says a second later didn’t make him remember what Kolivan told him a few hours ago. “Like a virus?”

  “… I’ll let Lance explain it to you later,” Coran murmurs after a long pause, glancing down at Keith with a slight sigh. Keith swallows, scrunching his eyebrows together as he glances down at the floor. He lets out a small, nervous chuckle, shaking his head a bit at the idea that Lance doesn’t think that Keith knows what going viral means. He might not use social media a lot, but he’s not that bad. “Here are your scores!”

  “My scores? Coran my PCS – it’s the highest at the competition!” Keith cries as he grabs his coach’s arms, eyes wide as he stares at the marks in front of him. It’s the highest PCS score Keith has ever gotten in a competition, by a good amount too. Keith didn’t even know that he could interpret music well enough to get a score like that, let alone the rest of it. Keith takes a deep breath, eyes wide as he reads the number again just to make sure it’s right. He’s never felt like a performer before and he doesn’t really now, but Keith does feel like he’s _better_ and that has to mean something, right?

 Coran pulls him into his arms before Keith can say another word or think about if he’s better, half-crushing him against his chest as he waves his free hand in the air. Keith’s eyes widen as he flings his arms out, not sure what’s going on until he looks up and sees the lights flashing in front of him. “You won the free skate! Keith you’re in second, my boy, you’re going, both of you are going!”

  “Yeah, we are,” Keith murmurs with a soft smile that doesn’t quite reaches his eyes as he looks at his total score. Second. Keith swallows at the idea, shaking his head slowly and trying to hide his disappointment. He’s happy for Lance, but even at his best he still can’t compete with him. Not when his jumps are still weaker. Maybe Kolivan was right about them not getting better after all. Keith’s gaze flits to the side, Lance finally coming into his line of sight. But there’s no warm smiles or tender looks, just a tight frown and a pinched gaze. Right. His PCS scores. Because Coran has been spending all his time trying to make Keith into an artist and neglecting Lance. Keith being here, it’s … it’s not good for Lance, it’s hurting him.

  Maybe Keith needs to think about switching coaches next season after all.


	3. Olympic Village

Two and a half weeks after nationals, Keith finds himself on a plane to Tokyo for the Olympics, Lance sitting next to him and Shiro across the aisle. He should be happy, but Keith can’t stop all the thoughts swirling in his head. he asked Lance about that face he made at Nationals, the disappointment. It had been about his PCS scores and he’d laughed it off, but Keith could tell from the look in his eyes that he meant it. And Lance’s PCS scores are going down because Coran is taking time away from Lance for Keith, because Keith’s jumps aren’t good enough to get him on a podium. Kolivan was right. His failing, his lack of _something_ is hurting Lance just as much as it’s hurting him. And the worst part is, Keith’s wondering if Lance is realizing that too.

  “Hey, do you want to watch the same movie?” Keith asks as he leans over, brushing a hand over Lance’s shoulder. Lance barely looks up him from his game, expression pinched. Keith wishes it were just about the game, but he has the feeling it’s actually about him. Things have been … tense ever since Nationals. Their date nights have still been good, handholding and movie nights and long walks through the park and fierce games of Mario Kart. If it wasn’t for training, Keith wouldn’t even think anything was wrong.

  But training happens and Lance … well, he suddenly gets distant. That’s supposed to be Keith’s thing. But Lance goes through most of practices and conditioning without saying anything to him, wincing every time Keith falls or under rotates one of his jumps. It’s not exactly great for his self-esteem. And well, Keith doesn’t want to make Lance feel annoyed or bad or, well, whatever he’s doing. Lance blinks owlishly, frown vanishing as his eyes go wide as though he forgot Keith were even on the plane. Keith feels like that’s a bad sign? But this is his first relationship, so he’s not sure he’s right. “What?”

  “It’s a pretty long flight to Tokyo. I just figured we could you know, watch a movie. Together,” Keith explains, voice trailing off as he stares down at his hands, biting his lip until one of Lance’s snakes over his. Lance gives him a small smile, gaze growing softer as Keith squeezes his hand in relief. Keith takes a deep breath, closing his eyes for a few seconds before opening them up again to glance over at Lance. “Maybe get some hot cocoa to go with it.”

  “We’re on an airplane Keith, it’s gonna be gross,” Lance points out with a small sigh, tone just a hair clipped like it has been for the past two weeks every time Keith skated. Good to know it’s bleeding into everything else. Keith frowns tightly, starting to pull his hand back, only to feel Lance grab it all the more tightly. When Keith looks over at Lance, he’s smiling again, but there’s something anxious in his gaze Keith doesn’t understand. Lance isn’t afraid of flying. “But, yeah, okay, let’s do that.”

  Keith and Lance drop their bags off at the airport with Shiro who promises to catch up with them later, telling them they should go enjoy the Olympic village. Keith shoots him a questioning look, wonders if it’s hard for him to be back at the Olympics when the last time he was here he was competing. Shiro was the youngest man to ever make the US team. Three years later, he was done.

   Their careers are short and sometimes shorter than they even expect. They have to make the most of this moment, make some kind of mark, prove they were worth all the time and money people spent on them. Not just his sponsors or his coaches, but Shiro and his mom and even Lance, for the time part. How can Keith do that when he keeps hitting the same wall over and over again? Then Lance calls his name from across the street, one eyebrow raised, and Keith forces himself out of his own head and back into reality. These are questions he needs to answer, for himself and for Lance, but right now he just wants to walk through Olympic village with his boyfriend.

  So this is Olympic village, I gotta admit it looks pretty cool. Ice-cold even,” Lance calls as he walks ahead of Keith, turning on one heel and throwing his arms out wide with a big grin. Keith looks over across the room, taking in the high tower and all the windows. Keith’s kind of glad they’re spending a few days in a hotel with Shiro and Coran first. He’s not … great with crowds. Then Lance’s words hit him full force and Keith stops and rolls his eyes affectionately, bumping Lance’s shoulder with his own. “Oh, c’mon baby, you know you love my puns.”

  “For some reason,” Keith quips as he takes a few big strides so he and Lance are side by side, sliding his hand out to capture Lance’s with his own. Lance grins over at him and shakes his head, sticking his tongue out before he leans over and kisses Keith, short and sweet.  

  “Because they’re as charming and clever as me,” Lance tells Keith in a self-assured tone, wriggling his eyebrows as they walk down the path toward the large apartment complex where the athletics’ center is, already surrounded by people carrying weights and equipment. Keith wonders if they should be there already too. Maybe they’re falling behind. Well, Keith is, has been for months. Lance isn’t. Keith knows he’s going to be on that podium, maybe even on the top. “So, I figure you’re heading straight to the rink?”

  “Oh. Umm, do you want to – do you want to walk around? The village, I mean,” Keith says as he gives Lance a nervous look, swallowing deeply as he waits for the rejection to come. Lance has been distant for three weeks and Keith thinks he might know why. Lance is a good person and a great athlete. Keith is just a burden. He knows Lance doesn’t see it that way, wouldn’t see it that way because of the good person thing, but Keith knows it must be getting to him subconsciously. After all, Keith is just this angry, selfish kid who can’t jump right and took Lance’s coach. That has to be getting to him.

  “I – yeah, let’s do that,” Lance says after a beat, smiling softly as he squeezes Keith’s hand as pulls him toward the other side of the path. Keith starts to nod as he glances over his shoulder and stops in his track, mouthing falling open slightly. Keith’s eyes go wide, flushing as he sees the people across the path from them. Ulaz. Antok. _Thace_. The US Men’s hockey team. Lance nudges him with his shoulder, snickering softly. “What are you doing with your face and can I film it?”

  “You’re going to either way,” Keith says with a crooked half-smile, gaze flitting back and forth between Lance and the hockey team to his left. Lance lets out another peal of laughter, taking his phone out and holding out in front of Keith for a few seconds. Keith points behind him, not caring for once that he’s being filmed. “That’s the US men’s hockey team over there, and the Canadian team is nearby. People think it’s between them for the Gold. The women’s team isn’t here yet, but they’re so good Lance.”

  “Aww, do you have a crush on the entirety of both teams?” Lance crows as he leans in so his mouth almost brushes Keith’s ear, and Keith doesn’t need to see Lance’s face to know he’s smirking. Keith’s flush deepens even as he rolls his eyes again, elbowing Lance softly as he spins around so they’re face to face. He glances down at the camera, relieved to see the red light’s already off. “Gonna leave me for some jocks who don’t even know how to skate as well as we do?”

  “Of course not! It’s not a crush,” Keith snaps without any heat, squeezing Lance’s hand back even as he shoots him a small glare. He’s only had three crushes in his entire life, and besides Lance, one of them is a power ranger and the other one was Rolo. But then he started dating Nyma, so Keith had to get over that. The only crush he hasn’t been able to get over, won’t ever be able to get over Lance. “I just like hockey. That’s why I started skating when I was little, but I wasn’t any good at the hockey part.”

  “And then you turned out short, so that was probably for the best,” Lance says as he gets up on his toes, so he looks like he towers over Keith, gaze bright and warm in a way it hasn’t been in a few weeks. Keith rolls his eyes because he knows he should, but inside all he can feel is relief. Whatever’s been going on the past two weeks and this morning on the plane seems to have faded away now that they’re in the Olympic village. Maybe it isn’t about him or if he’s a burden or not a burden after all. Keith does jump to conclusions sometimes, and usually they’re right, but when they’re wrong, they’re pretty fucking wrong.

  “Hey, you’re not that much taller than me,” Keith mutters with a small pout, because he’s only two and a half inches shorter than Lance. And he could still grow.

  “Tall enough to do this,” Lance whispers before leaning in and pressing his mouth to Keith’s forehead, lips soft and warm where they touch his skin. Keith smiles softly, leaning into the touch and pushing all of his fears from before behind him. It’s not fair for him to put his baggage (and Keith has an entire cargo plane full of it) on to Lance. They’re going to have a good first day and they can figure out everything with the coaching situation later. Lance seems to agree, leaning over and giving him another quick kiss on the forehead.

  “I can’t believe you’re using your height against me,” Keith mumbles as he looks up at Lance with flushes cheeks, shaking his head so some of his hair falls across his face to hide it.

  “You’re right, how can I ever make up for my insensitivity,” Lance ponders with a low exhale, scrunching his eyebrows together as he looks down at Keith. Keith raises an eyebrow, smirking a bit as he takes a step forward so he’s in Lance’s space, brushing his hand against Lance’s chest. Lance’s eyelids grow half-lidded, mouth twisting into a wide grin. “What can I do to earn back your trust?”

  “Buy me some hot chocolate,” Keith deadpans, raising one eyebrow when Lance lets out a small laugh. Keith starts giggling a second later, leaning forward with his head bent so his brushes the edge of Lance’s chin.

  “You drive a hard bargain, but I think we can make that happen,” Lance promises as he gives Keith a quick grin, gaze flitting away as he looks for the promised athlete’s coffee stand. Keith darts away a few feet from him, sliding in line behind someone he doesn’t recognize, ordering two cups of hot cocoa with extra marshmallows. Lance loves those things. “Keith you can’t ask me to buy you hot chocolate and then get it yourself.”

  “I wanted to surprise you,” Keith tells him with a soft smile, pushing Lance’s drink toward him. Lance smiles back at him softly, but there’s something pained in his gaze that makes Keith swallow his hot cocoa a little too quickly. Maybe he wasn’t wrong about it being about him after all.

* * *

  “Keith, can I ask you about something?” Lance asks after they’ve been drinking their cocoa in silence for a few minutes, knowing that they probably need to have this talk sooner rather than later. If Keith is considering leaving or not leaving or whatever, Lance well, he needs to know. Keith doesn’t look surprised when he meets his gaze, but he does look nervous, sighing deeply as he tightens his grip around his cup, creating small indentions around the edges. Keith looks up at Lance and then back down to the table, biting his lip for a moment.

  Keith blinks a bit owlishly, cocking his head to the side as he takes a sip of his cocoa. Some confusion has come into his gaze now, mixing with the anxiety and fear, like maybe he can’t figure out what they need to talk about even if he knows they need to talk. How many secrets does Keith have here? “What’s up?”

  “I know you talked to Kolivan about him teaching you jumps, but we never really got into it,” Lance tells him with a tight frown, gaze dropping to the table when he sees anxiety fill Keith’s eyes. That’s never a good sign. Still Lance feels like the best thing he can do is push forward. They have a lot of skating they need to focus on coming up, and Lance doesn’t know about Keith, but he knows he can’t do it with this hanging over them all the time. “Have you umm, have you guys talked more?”

  “Oh – I yeah, we have,” “Keith admits with a small shrug, gaze flickering up toward the ceiling and then to the left. It’s his lying face, the reason everyone who watches his vlog knows that Keith actually did cry during the Pokémon movie. Normally Lance thinks it’s pretty cute, but he’s got to admit right now he’s finding it kind of obnoxious. He gives Keith a tight glare when Keith finally meets his gaze again, raising an eyebrow in mild disbelief that Keith thought he could get away with lying to anyone, let alone him. “He said if I didn’t want to switch coaches completely, I could just come to see him for a few months of jump training.”

  “ _Months_? Keith, Kolivan trains in Los Angeles and we train in Colorado, that’s not really gonna work out,” Lance points out, voice rising a little as he rests one hand against the table and looks up to meet his boyfriend’s gaze with a small frown. He knows that Keith makes a lot of decisions – arguably most decisions – impulsively, but this is a little much, even for him. He must know that he’s not going to be able to make this work unless he leaves them, and Keith doesn’t want to do that … does he?

  “Lance, a lot of skaters go back and forth between coaches all season,” Keith reminds him as he bites his lip, gaze still far away and confused even as his voice takes on a defensive edge. Lance’s expression tightens because he knows this isn’t going well, but he has no idea how to set things right either. “You know that.”

  “yeah, but … that … costs a lot of money,” Lance says with a small wince, because it’s probably an asshole move to bring that up. But someone needs to do it too, right? The Shiroganes aren’t rich and Keith doesn’t let them pay for anything anyway most of the time. Keith doesn’t have a lot of money and most of his sponsors aren’t like, covering that much and … Keith’s face falls, gaze flickering to the wall behind with a tight frown. Okay, yeah, Lance is an asshole. “I mean, I know you have sponsorship deals now, I got the orange juice with your face on it. I just wanna make sure you’re considering everything.”

  “I have been!” Keith snaps as he slides a hand toward the table, fingers forming into a small fist as his voice rises. His glare is heated but also ashamed, flushing for a second before he closes his eyes. When he opens them again, he’s still angry and ashamed, but calmer. Further away. Lance needs to fix this. “Look, I’ll figure it out, okay? Why are you bringing this up now anyway?”

  “I’m sorry, that was a shitty thing to say. But I’m bringing it up because we need to talk about the elephant in the room, Keith,” Lance yells before he can stop himself, leaning forward and glaring as Keith’s eyes widen like he has no idea what Lance is talking about. Which, there’s no way that even if Keith could be that oblivious right? He’s not always the most … socially aware person, but he’s not usually _this_ bad. “They’re not going to move their rink to Colorado from Los Angeles, so what’s gonna happen here? Are you going to leave team Coran?”

  Keith takes a few deep breaths, closes his eyes _again_ , and then he opens them. Lance finds himself staring into an abyss. Keith looks so far away, expression cold and empty as he frowns tightly at Lance. Then something strange comes into his gaze, something that makes Lance’s stomach drop, lips curling as he watches Keith run a hand over the top of his hot cocoa. “Look, I’m figuring out the best option for everyone, okay?”

  “Does everyone include me?” Lance asks in a small voice as he clutches his hot cocoa, face stiff as he tries not to tear up. He knows now why he put this off the past two weeks, waited until what’s realistically probably the worst possible moment for either of them. he knows that this conversation is going to end awkwardly at best, and at worst the way it feels like it’s going, Keith leaving him and them goodbye for reasons Lance doesn’t understand. Keith has been doing so well with Coran and with Shiro and Lance thought with him too. He doesn’t understand how meeting Kolivan changed everything so fast.

  “Of course, it does,” Keith says softly as he brushes a hand over Lance’s own, gaze tender yet still sad in a way that makes Lance feel sick. He feels like Keith’s already gone and well, if he is, Lance isn’t going to sit here with him and alone at the same time. “That’s part of the reason I might need to train somewhere else. Coran was your coach first.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense – we need to practice, we can talk about later,” Lance mutters as he shoots Keith a tired look as he gets up, hot cocoa in hand. He’s not surprised when Keith doesn’t follow him. He’s shocked to find that he’s relived. But then, Lance needs some space. Hopefully he’ll be in a better mood when they meet up at training tonight and Keith will have come to his senses.

  Lance isn’t in a better mood when he gets to the rink for practice that afternoon though, and it doesn’t seem like Keith has come anywhere close to common sense with the way he won’t meet his or Coran’s gaze. he seems guilty and nervous, and Lance isn’t surprised when his free skate is sloppier than anything else, falling on two of his quads, under rotating his first triple axel, and having a two-footed landing on his second one. The whole thing reminds him of Keith at Junior Worlds a year ago. The last time Keith left a coach (even though, okay, Lance knows that’s a lot more complicated and wasn’t exactly Keith’s choice). None of that bodes well for Keith staying and yeah, all of it might put Lance a little bit on edge.

  “Nice job falling out there, Keith,” Lance calls as Keith come off the ice, body looking as worn out as his face does. Keith raises an eyebrow at him, rolling his eyes as Lance leans over to get up in his face. Keith isn’t getting riled up like he normally does when Lance teases him, and that just pisses him off even more than if Keith was arguing with. Keith doesn’t just get to shut him out like this when they’re supposed to be fighting with him. “Maybe you really do need a jump coach after all.”

  Keith crosses his arms as he leans against the rink, glaring a little as he takes in Lance’s words. Words Lance regrets immediately because way to push Keith even closer to leaving them after the Olympics. Maybe he’ll stay through Worlds if they’re lucky, but Lance hasn’t felt very lucky lately. But at least Keith is making expressions again, leaning in so he and Lance are nose to nose. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m just saying you fell, and your spins, well I just think they looked kind of sloppy,” Lance tells Keith before he can stop himself, harsh words pouring out of him like he’s one of those cursed girls from the fairy tale. The one with snails and spiders, not the girls with jewels in her throat. Keith pulls back, eyes widening a bit and eyebrows shooting up as he stares at Lance. Yeah, this is harsher than they got when they were actually rivals. Lance takes a deep breath and tries to speak more calmly, more kindly, though his words still come out more cruelly than he means. “Maybe you’ve been thinking too much about how to land all those quads again. You know you still won’t get Gold if you can’t do anything else.”

  “Not with the way they’re scoring now,” Keith points out tonelessly, but there’s something in the aside look he gives Lance that makes him stiffen. Does he mean him? It’s not Lance’s fault that he got good at jumping at the same time Keith started faltering. Fuck that. Lance gives him a tight look and turns away from him, sliding on the ice with posture he knows means this is gonna go badly.

  Lance isn’t surprised when he wobbles on his first triple axel, or that every move he makes feels like it’s by rote. He can’t see the dragon or the phoenix, doesn’t know how to save the phoenix from drowning or the dragon from getting burnt. None of this makes any sense. Lance isn’t surprised when he crashes on the floor, legs flying in the air in a way that panics him for a moment. He knows he’s not alone because he hears Keith’s sharp gasp from across the rink, and that alone is enough to push Lance to his feet and get him through the rest of his routine smoothly, if without passion. He has to do well. The worse he or Keith does, the less likely Keith is to stay.

  “Oh wow, you did so much better than me, Lance,” Keith says as Lance comes off the ice, voice tight and mocking in a way that honestly doesn’t really work for Keith, who’s a lot better at snark or being hotheaded. Keith’s lucky that Lance is already annoyed. Lance shoots him a hot glare, pressing his hands against his hip as Keith takes a few steps toward him, smirking in a way that doesn’t match the mix of emotions in his eyes. “I’ll definitely keep your expert advice in mind.”

  “Hey, I only fell once so maybe you should keep your mouth shut!” Lance snaps as he leans in, so he and Keith are only a few inches apart, faces so close Lance doesn’t know if they’re going to yell or kiss. Though he guesses, given the circumstances, kissing would actually be a lot unhealthier, so it’s probably a good thing that Keith takes a step back at the same time that Lance does. They both need to deescalate this situation, but Lance has no idea how to do that right now.  

  “Boys, what is going on?” Coran cries as he walks in between them, which Lance knows is probably for the best. Coran turns back and forth between them with a tight frown, brow furrows and gaze heavy with concern as he looks over them both carefully. Lance watches Keith swallow and look at the ground again, anxious and petulant for reasons he won’t let anyone know, and Lance is angry and scared all over again. So much for the team event. “You two haven’t ever fought like this while you were both training under me. Let’s sit down and talk about this.”

  “No, I don’t think so, I’m only interested in talking to people who know how to be on a team,” Lance mutters before he can stop himself, eyes glued to Keith as the other boy winces softly. Keith takes a step toward him and opens his mouth and then closes it, gaze growing tighter as he looks away from Lance. Right, Keith thinks he needs to leave _for_ Lance partially and Lance has no idea how to make it clear he doesn’t and that’s a stupid idea. Lance swallows, shaking his head as he walks past Keith and toward the rink doors, wondering how everything went so wrong so fast. Well, he knows how. Kolivan. He just doesn’t know _why_.

  “What are you talking about? You’re both in the team event!” Coran calls after him, voice a mixture of confusion and exhaustion Lance feels bad for being partially responsible for. But he just can’t be in here right now, can’t deal with the fact that nothing he says is ever going to be enough to help Keith or fix whatever’s going on in his head. He’s not an artist, he’s not emotionally savvy, he’s just Lance and right now that doesn’t feel like it’s enough.

 

* * *

  Coran slides onto one of the chairs across from where Keith is unlacing his boots with intense focus, trying to keep his mind on anything but Lance. He can feel the other man watching him and Keith bites his lip, shaking his head because he doesn’t want to talk about this right now. Or at all. Keith looks up, hoping Coran will somehow be gone, but he’s still there watching Keith. “Okay, well Lance isn’t going to tell me what’s going on, but is there any chance that you want to talk to me about it?”

  “Talking isn’t really my thing,” Keith reminds Coran with a tight smile, one that fades quickly as he meets the other man’s gaze. Keith looks away. A part of him wants to just walk away and not say anything, but not sharing details hasn’t really been working out for him. Keith takes a deep breath, voice harsh and tight when he next speaks, each word tinged with guilt. “Kolivan offered to be my jump coach or just my coach. And he’s my uncle.”

  “I see,” Coran says softly, expression not giving away if he’s hurt or relieved or any of the other things Keith’s afraid of making Coran feel. Keith looks down at his shoes, staring at the laces and biting his lip so much that he can taste a hint of blood. It’s salty and with a hint of something metallic, and Keith’s glad he has something to focus on instead of the conversation he’s having right now or was having yesterday. “I’d understand Keith, if you wanted to get to know your family. No one could hold that against you.”

  “I could,” Keith mutters as he crosses his arms against his chest, suddenly wondering if he’s being selfish. Is he just running away from Coran and Lance because he wants his family? But no, he does want to learn more about his mom, but … he wants to skate better too. But is that still selfish? “I don’t – I have a family. That part isn’t important to me. But my jumps aren’t getting better.”

  “I think it’s more important than you think,” Coran tells him as he presses a hand to his shoulder, gaze kind but knowing in a way that makes Keith look away because he doesn’t deserve it. “But as to the second problem, you only have less difficult jumps than Rolo and Lance, not the entire field. And, don’t tell Lance I said this, but your spins are the best out there right now. You’re right, we do need to work on improving your consistency with some of your rotations, but I also wanted to make sure you didn’t lose what made you special chasing after being like someone else.”

  “This isn’t about Shiro!” Keith snaps and then blinks owlishly, shocked by his own words. It’s not, it shouldn’t be about Shiro at all. Keith got over that, didn’t he? Sure, he doesn’t want to be an issue for Shiro or Lance or Coran, and that means he has to be as good as all of them and not need them and he needs them all the time and – Keith needs to stop thinking so much. “I – it’s complicated. I want to live up to what people want me to be. I don’t want to be a burden on you or Shiro or Lance.”

  “My boy, if none of us are saying you are, what makes you think we feel that way?” Coran asks calmly, though there’s something unbearably sad in his gaze that stings. Keith cross his arms against his chest and looks down at his boots again, because even when he tries not to hurt people, he still does.

  “I – its’ not that you guys – it’s not what you guys are doing. I just want to make people proud and I’m not doing that,” Keith mumbles as he looks down, not wanting to see the disappointment in Coran’s eyes. Keith knows he’s falling behind and stealing Coran’s time and how could a coach be happy about that? How could anyone be anything but disappointed or angry or some combination of both? That’s how Keith feels about himself all the time. Keith feels a hand on his shoulder and lets out a small gasp, glancing up to find Coran staring back at him with a sorrowful smile.

  “Yes, you are. The only who isn’t proud of you here is you, Keith,” Coran tells him in a soft voice as he leans over and pats him on the shoulder before standing up. Keith hears his words, eyes widening as the other man meets his gaze, eyes sad and warm at the same time as he starts walking out of the rink. Keith watches him until he goes through the rink doors. He’s right. Everything Keith’s been thinking and feeling, true or not, is his own problem. Coran _is_ a good coach and Keith is better with him, and not just as a skater. Maybe, no, definitely he needs to stay here. And he needs to apologize to Lance.

  The next day Keith is the first one in the stand at the short program, standing in front in his Team America sweater, screaming Lance’s name as loudly as he can. Lance skates, beautiful, strong, and Keith feels his heart swell. Lance is so good, so natural at this when his insecurities don’t get in his way, that Keith was stupid to think that he ever could. Lance was born for this and Keith wants to be there every day watching him, to get to see him grow as an artist and a skater. Keith wants to do what’s best for everyone, but he also wants to be with Lance. And maybe, maybe there is a way for both those things to be true.

  After the skate ends, Lance comes over to the waiting area and looks over at him, gaze narrowed. Keith gives him a crooked smile and mouths ‘I’m sorry’, cocking his head to the side as they wait for the scores. It’s not enough, Keith knows that, but it’s all he can do right now when they have cameras on them. Lance slides over to his side, smile soft and unsure and he rests his hand on top of Keith’s and they wait for his score. He comes in first and Keith throws his arms around him, heart filling with warmth at the way Lance jumps up and down while laughing. Just for right now, everything is okay.

* * *

  Lance finds himself alone with Keith after he gets done with his team short event and a few short interviews, Keith waiting with a soft smile by the locker rooms. He apologized, but Lance doesn’t know if it’s just for their fight or for the whole Kolivan deal or what. But it’s something and Lance … well, he can admit now that he’s less focused on the competition that he didn’t handle himself perfectly either. He got too caught up in his own insecurities and he said the wrong thing a few times and … well, what happened happened. Now they’ve both cooled down and Lance wants to talk this out.

  “Hey Keith, how are you doing? I’m sorry I haven’t been around since the short program, I’m not mad at you, I just had all this press stuff,” Lance calls as he sees his boyfriend across the room, looking even paler than usual and like he maybe hadn’t slept well the night before. Lance guesses he’s the reason for that. He’s still … he’s not thrilled Keith just shut him out instead of sharing his feelings with him, but in retrospect, Lance thinks he probably could’ve handled that better too. He got kind of … petty, and if Keith isn’t sharing with him or (hopefully? Or does hopefully make him a bad person?) anyone else, there’s probably something bigger going on here.

  “No, I know about the press stuff,” Keith tells him with a warm grin, gaze growing soft and proud as he looks up at Lance and reaches a hand out toward him. Keith grabs Lance’s hand with own and squeezes it softly. Lance lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, brushing a hand over Keith’s own. He was terrified that Keith was gonna be mad at him or run away again, and at least for right now, he’s not doing either. That’s a start. Lance can work with that. “Your interview with Andrea Joyce was, it was good.”

  Lance smiles at Keith and pulls him a bit closer, because they need to talk, but they’re still doing better than they were two days ago. “You did – “

  “Don’t say I did well, we both know I didn’t,” Keith says with a small laugh, voice raspy in a way Lance has missed this past few weeks. They’ve both been so tense and distant, there hasn’t been time for fun or laughter, or even friendly competition. Lance has missed all of it, missed their dates and skating with Keith at the rink, arguing over who’s right and then googling it and finding out they’re both wrong. He wants things to go back to normal. “I need to talk to someone – Kolivan, I’ll see you in a few hours, okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, okay,” Lance agrees in a strained voice, knowing his smile has already left his eyes by the time he finishes that sentence. Kolivan. The elephant in the room, or maybe not anymore, depending on what Keith wants to talk to him about right now. It could be a yes or a no, or about something completely different with his mom. Lance watches Keith walk down the hallway and then turns and goes in the other direction, not stopping until he finds himself in the elevator at his hotel. He needs to talk to someone who knows Keith even better than he does. Or at least someone who’s known him longer, and that’s how he finds himself knocking on door 322. “Hey Shiro, can I talk to you for a few minutes? Is that okay?”

  “Of course,” Shiro says as he opens the door and leads Lance in the room with a small, confused smile. Shiro sits down in the computer chair, letting Lance take the bed as his own seat. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s about Keith, which I mean, you probably could’ve guessed, since that’s the only thing we have in common,” Lance rambles, trying to keep his voice light even as a million worries race through his mind and smash into each other, like a bad speed skating competition. Lance knows that he needs to talk about this with someone, and Shiro is well, Shiro is kind of his only option. “I mean, besides skating. But yeah, so umm, I think Keith is more upset about this Kolivan situation than he’s letting on.”

  “What, why?” Shiro asks, sounding a bit surprised as he leans in toward Lance, eyebrows both going up a bit. Shiro somehow looks surprised and like he expected this, brow furrowing as his entire frame grows more rigid. “He didn’t want to talk about it when I asked, but he seemed like he focused more on the jumps.”

  “I think Keith thinks he’s focusing on that, but he seems kind of … more upset than that should make him?” Lance tries to explain, because he’s seen Keith upset about his jumps because he thinks it will mean he’s losing someone else and he’s seen Keith worried about his jumps when that isn’t the deal. This is definitely the first but in overdrive, Keith pulling away in at least six different ways while telling Lance it’s what best for everyone, even though it’s actually terrible for them and Coran and going by his face, Shiro. “I don’t know, I just feel like there’s a lot he’s not telling me and instead …”

  “He’s running away?” Shiro guesses, smile knowing as though he’s been through this before himself. At least Lance isn’t alone in trying to understand his boyfriend. Keith is … hard to read sometimes. Or well, no, that’s not it. Keith’s emotions are easy, it’s figuring out where they’re coming from that’s hard. “Keith … he tends to withdraw when he’s upset until he can find a solution. But I think it would be good to talk to him about it, calmly and without pressure. I wasn’t as always as good as I could have been on the second, but he needs to know you’re not going to be disappointed in him no matter what he’s feeling.”

  “Right, I think I get it. Thanks, Shiro,” Lance tells him with a quick nod, grinning as he rolls up from the bed and starts walking to toward the door. Lance, well, he needs to talk to someone else still, nerves frayed but knowing that he’s another step closer to making things okay. Or maybe, just maybe, Lance is going to find a way to make things even better.

* * *

  Keith knows approaching a rival coach between the team event and the individual competition publicly might be a bad move, but Keith hasn’t been able to find Kolivan anywhere but the ice. Today is no different, Kolivan not in any of the places the rest of the coaches are hanging out between events. Keith finds him by the rink, watching replay footage of him and Regris. Keith stares at him for a few seconds, smiling a little as he sees the screen flicker. “Kolivan, can I talk to you for a minute?”

  “Have you thought more about what I said?” Kolivan asks without preamble, voice firm as he glances over at Keith. Keith guesses that at least he doesn’t have to bring up the issue himself. Keith sighs as he looks up at Kolivan, glaring tightly up at the older man before he closes his eyes for a few seconds. Keith isn’t mad at Kolivan. Not about this, anyway. Keith looks up at Kolivan, finding the other man staring at him with a neutral expression. “I don’t need an immediate answer and you’d do better to focus on the individual event.”

  “Probably,” Keith answers with a chortle that’s halfway between a laugh and a scoff. Keith’s nervous and feels bad about what he’s about to say, but a part of him is also relieved. Actually, coming to this decision about what he wants, what he _needs_ and that it’s okay to need Coran and Shiro and Lance and everything else. It’s _okay_. “Look, I don’t want to switch coaches. You’re great and you’re right about my jumps, but Coran and I are going to work on it, and I like where I am.”

  “That is fine then, it was only a suggestion. I understand that Coran has his own advantages as well,” Kolivan tells him, voice calm in a way that doesn’t match the flicker of disappointment Keith sees flash across his face. Keith glances up at him and takes a deep breath, gaze growing a bit sad as he gives the older man an apologetic smile, face feeling too tight. Kolivan lets out a quick grunt and then he smiles, equally tight but with something like warmth in his eyes. “But I will be in Colorado for a few weeks after Worlds.”

  “You will?” Keith says in a small voice, glancing up at Kolivan with a hope he can’t quite fight off even though every reasonable part of his brain is telling him to. Maybe, maybe Kolivan can be a part of his life too after all. Maybe he doesn’t have to choose between the family he’s made and the family he never got to have after all.

  “I have some business to take care of while Regris and some of my other students have a break,” Kolivan informs him with a small smile as he hands Keith another card, this one with a phone number and email hastily scribbled down. Keith looks down at it and swallows deeply, looking up at Kolivan with a watery smile. He takes a few deep breaths to push his tears down, smile getting wider when Kolivan speaks again. “If you wanted, we could have a jump workshop then. Lance could come as well, if he wanted.”

  “Yeah, I’d like that a lot. Lance would too,” Keith tells Kolivan as he gives him a crooked grin, suddenly feeling a lot lighter than he had when he started this conversation. Keith can have the things he wants and it’s okay. He’s not a burden and maybe, maybe Lance and Kolivan and everyone else isn’t going to reject him. Maybe he doesn’t have to run away from things. “And if you wanted, we could maybe get dinner a few times too. If you want, I mean.”

  “I’d like that very much,” Kolivan tells him, and this time it’s impossible for Keith to miss the undercurrent of warmth in his voice. Keith nods and leans over, giving the older man a quick half-hug. Kolivan stiffens under his touch, but then returns it with a slight pack on the back, letting go of his arm a second later. It’s not anywhere near perfect, but it’s a start and that’s good enough for Keith.

* * *

  Lance dials his phone, watching as the phone rings once, twice before someone finally answers. Lance lets out a sigh of relief as a familiar smiling face comes on the screen, Hunk’s icon making him grin. Now to get some advice from the only relationship expert he knows, because Hunk’s the only person he knows who has been dating someone for over a year besides Coran or his parents, and he can’t them about his Keith issues.

  “Hey Hunk, how are you doing? How are classes going? How is Shay?” Lance asks all as one sentence, words coming out fast as he tries to be polite while also wanting to get to the issue at hand. Lance wants to be a good friend and hear all about Hunk’s life and not give him more to deal with if he’s having a bad day. But he also needs to get advice pronto, because he wants to put all this stress behind before the individual events and they only have six days left before the short program.

  “Everything is great here, midterms are still a few weeks away and Shay and I are going to a robotics workshop for Valentine’s Day,” Hunk tells him, voice going soft and far away on the part about robotics. Lance can just picture the way he’s beaming, smile bright and face lightly flushed. Then he hears Hunk laugh, warm and bright, mind clearly back on the phone. “And you were awesome in the short program, that quad was killer. But I got the feeling you’re not calling me from the Olympics to make small talk, so what’s up dude?”

  “You know me far too well,” Lance admits with a small sigh, flopping back against the hotel pillow as he stares up at the white ceiling. Lance closes his eyes as he speaks, thinking that not having to face white walls for a bit might help him. “I’m … worried that Keith is sort of freezing me out. We kind of had a weird fight?”

  Hunk takes a deep breath, and then Lance hears him wrestling something around him. Lance swears he’s grabbing popcorn and lets out a small snort. “What happened?”

  “Okay, so Keith’s uncle Kolivan is also a coach and he’s trying to steal Keith from Team Coran, and of course Keith is considering it because it’s his uncle, but instead of talking to me about it, he’s just been avoiding the topic and getting all distant and pouty when I bring it up,” Lance says, voice growing weaker and weaker on each word. Out loud, the fight sounds kind of silly on both sides, something they could’ve easily avoided if one of them had just been a bit more direct and a little less insecure. “And okay, I maybe got a little petty and snarky when that happened. But just a little.”

  “So what you’re saying is you both have communication issues and you’re not nosy enough to google Keith’s family stuff?”  Hunk asks with a chuckle, warm and bright and Lance can practically hear the way his eyebrows are wriggling across the phone. Lance shakes his head and then mutters Hunk’s name under his breath, because no, he didn’t google Keith’s backstory. Lance knows Keith will share that stuff when he’s ready. They’ve only been together for a few months. “Okay, okay, I get it. not everyone is me. But I think you two need to sit down and talk about this then. It sounds like both of you handled this not well, but I don’t think it’s like a break up issue. Unless Keith does move to California maybe, but – “

  “Thank you for the advice, Hunk, don’t need the extra fears I already have,” Lance quips, shaking his head and raising an eyebrow even though he knows Hunk can’t see it through the phone. Hunk makes an apologetic sound that’s tinted with laughter, warm and reassuring. Lance grins a little as he slides off the bed, walking toward the door with a newfound sense of determination. “But really, thanks Hunk, that helped a lot.”

  Lance texts Keith to meet him at the coffee shop by the gym in 20 minutes and pulls on his favorite blue hoodie for good luck. He can do this, Hunk is right. He just needs to be honest and open, and hopefully Keith will respond in kind. He gets that Keith is afraid or was afraid of something, rejection or whatever, but they need to talk. That’s the only way he can let him know he’s in this, win or lose, medals or no medals. He likes Keith, not anything else about him. And he knows he needs to listen to Keith too, because if he wants to get know his family more well … who is he to stand in the way of that?

  But he doesn’t – no, he’s over thinking this, Lance just needs to talk to Keith before he does any more thinking. Lance arrives at the coffee shop and gets in line, ordering two hot cocoas and then taking them to an empty table in the corner. Five minutes later Keith walks in, hair tied back in a bun and cheeks lightly flushed from the winter wind, smiling anxiously as he approaches the table. At least Lance isn’t the only one who’s nervous.

  “Keith, hey, here I got you a hot cocoa,” Lance calls as he barges into Keith’s bedroom, grinning nervously as he holds a cup out in front of Keith. Keith gives him a shaky smile, taking the cup and looking up at Lance, gaze a mixture of anxiety and hope as their hands brush against each other on the cup. This is going to work. Lance is going to make it work. “We need to talk.”

**Author's Note:**

> Just as a side note, while real life skaters will be mentioned here and there, they will NOT be mentioned as competitors in Nationals and the Olympics and the Olympic location will likely be different just to make it more removed from reality.


End file.
